GIFT  OF 
Isaacson 


"ill. 


The  Gifford  Lectures 

DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF   GLASGOW 


First  Series 

THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ORDER    OF 
THE  WORLD.    Crown  8vo,  $2.00 

Second  Series 

THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE 
WORLD.    Crown  8vo,  $2.00 


THE  MORAL  ORDER 
OF  THE  WORLD 

IN  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT 


BY 

ALEXANDER  BALMAIN  BRUCE,  D.D. 

t^ 

PROFESSOR  OF  APOLOGETICS  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT 

EXEGESIS  IN  THE  FREE  CHURCH  COLLEGE, 

GLASGOW 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1899 


TbTO 


:.•••.       •./::•::  : 
:  V      .  v  ::••:•./ 


PREFACE 

c 

OUR  theme  is  still  the  Providential  Order.  The 
new  title,  however,  is  used  not  merely  to  make  a 
nominal  distinction  between  the  two  courses  of 
Lectures,  but  because  there  is  a  real,  though  slight, 
difference  in  meaning  which  makes  the  title  the  more 
appropriate  to  this  course.  A  Providential  Order 
implies  a  God  who  provides.  One  who  speaks  of 
a  Providence  is  a  Theist,  who  believes  in  a  God 
caring  for,  and  governing,  all.  The  Moral  Order,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  impersonal,  and  one  may  use  the 
phrase  and  believe  in  the  thing  it  denotes,  who  is 
no  Theist,  no  believer  in  a  living  personal  God  in 
the  ordinary  theistic  sense  of  the  words.  Buddha, 
the  theme  of  our  first  Lecture,  is  an  instance. 

Of  course  this  historical  survey  is  not  exhaustive. 
It  is,  however,  fairly  representative,  and  brings  the 
whole  subject,  by  samples,  sufficiently  under  view  to 


M27861 


vi   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

answer  the  question,  What  have  the  wisest  thought 
on  the  great  theme  of  the  Moral  Order  of  the  uni- 
verse in  its  reality  and  essential  nature  ? 

Publication  of  these  Lectures  has  been  delayed 
for  a  twelvemonth  by  the  state  of  my  health. 

A.  B.   BRUCE. 

GLASGOW,  April  1899. 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE    I 

PACK 
BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER,  ,  .  .  .  I 


LECTURE    II 
ZOROASTER:  DUALISM, 34 

LECTURE    III 

THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS  :   NEMESIS,        .          ....          66 

LECTURE    IV 

THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE,      .  103 

LECTURE    V 

DIVINATION,   •«....••••        140 

LECTURE    VI 

THE  HEBREW  PROPHET 1 74 


viii      THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 
LECTURE    VII 

FACE 
THE   BOOK   OF  JOB, •  2O7 

LECTURE    VIII 
CHRIST'S  TEACHING  CONCERNING  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE,       .      243 

LECTURE    IX 

MODERN  OPTIMISM  :   BROWNING,      ......        279 

LECTURE    X 

MODERN  DUALISM  :  SCIENTIFIC  AND  PHILOSOPHIC  ASPECTS,         312 

LECTURE    XI 

MODERN    DUALISM  :   RELIGIOUS  AND  SOCIAL  ASPECTS,   .          .        346 

LECTURE    XII 

RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT, 380 

INDEX, 4<7 


THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 


LECTURE  I 

BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER 

THE  Providential  Order  is  still  our  theme.  Now, 
however,  it  is  not  to  my  own  thoughts  that  I  solicit 
attention.  I  ask  you  to  engage  with  me  in  a  sympa- 
thetic while  critical  study  of  the  thoughts  of  other 
men  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  The  subject  is 
sufficiently  large,  attractive,  and  difficult  to  justify  a 
second  course.  It  cannot  be  said  to  be  exhausted 
till  we  have  made  ourselves  acquainted  in  some 
degree  with  the  more  important  contributions  to- 
wards its  elucidation.  Earnest  thought  on  Divine 
Providence,  however  ancient,  cannot  but  be  interest- 
ing, and  it  may  be  instructive,  not  only  by  the 
abiding  truth  it  contains,  but  even  by  its  doubts,  its 
denials,  its  crudities,  its  errors.  It  is  obvious,  how- 
ever, that  selection  will  be  necessary.  Attention 
must  be  confined  to  outstanding  types  of  thought, 
in  which  an  exceptionally  intense  moral  conscious- 
ness is  revealed,  and  deep,  sincere  protracted  brood- 
ing, as  of  men  wrestling  with  a  great  hard  problem. 
On  this  principle  preference  must  be  given  in  the 
A 


2   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

first  place  to  representative  thinkers  in  India,  Persia, 
and  Greece,  the  countries  in  which,  in  far-past  times, 
human  reflection  on  the  august  topic  of  the  moral 
order  mny  be  said  to  have  reached  the  high-water 
mark.  In  India,  the  centre  of  attraction  is  Buddha, 
with  his  peculiar  way  of  viewing  life  and  destiny ;  in 
Persia,  Zoroaster.  To  each  of  these  great  characters 
a  lecture  will  be  devoted,  and  in  these  two  lectures 
my  representation,  through  lack  of  first-hand  know- 
ledge, must  rest  on  the  authority  of  experts.  On 
the  contributions  of  Greece  we  shall  have  to  tarry 
longer.  The  Tragic  Poets  and  the  Stoics  have  both 
strong  claims  on  our  regard,  the  former  as  conspicuous 
assertors  of  the  moral  order,  the  latter  as  not  less 
prominent  champions  of  a  universal  Providence. 
With  these  representatives  of  Greek  wisdom  two 
lectures  will  be  occupied.  Our  next  topic  will  be 
one  having  no  exclusive  connection  with  Greek 
thought  or  with  the  Greek  people,  but  with  which 
the  name  of  the  Stoics  is  closely  associated.  I  mean 
Divination.  The  oracles  have  long  been  dumb, 
and  it  requires  an  effort  to  revive  interest  in  the 
subject.  But  we  cannot  understand  the  views  of 
the  ancient  world  without  taking  the  belief  in 
Divination  into  account.  This,  therefore,  will  form 
the  subject  of  the  concluding  lecture  on  Pagan 
thought. 

Hebrew  thought,  on  its  own  intrinsic  merits,  claims 
serious  attention.     The  Prophets  of  Israel,  as  we  all 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER     3 

know,  had  much  to  say  concerning  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  God.  The  Book  of  Job  also  is  a  unique 
contribution  to  the  discussion  of  the  problems  of 
Providence  which  cannot  be  overlooked.  Prophetic 
teaching,  therefore,  having  been  disposed  of,  all  too 
inadequately,  in  a  single  lecture,  that  book  will  re- 
ceive the  consideration  it  claims  in  another.  A 
reverent  study  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  on  the 
Providence  of  the  Divine  Father  in  a  third  will  close 
the  discussion  of  Hebrew  wisdom. 

The  foregoing  part  of  our  programme  will  take  up 
eight  lectures.  Three  of  the  remaining  four  will  be 
devoted  to  modern  thought  on  topics  bearing  on  our 
theme,  while  the  final  lecture  will  assume  the  form 
of  a  retrospect  and  a  forecast. 

Modern  thought  is  a  wide  word,  and  a  point  of 
view  will  be  needed  to  guide  selection.  Let  it  be 
the  question,  What  tendencies  characterise  those 
who  have  been  anxious  to  abide  as  far  as  possible  by 
the  Christian  idea  of  God  ?  Two  broadly  contrasted 
tendencies  may  be  discriminated,  one  optimistic, 
the  other  dualistic.  The  one  accepts  without 
abatement  Christ's  idea  of  a  Divine  Father  and  says : 
All  is  well  with  the  world,  or  is  on  the  way  to  be 
well.  The  other  also  accepts  the  Christian  idea  of 
God,  but,  unable  to  take  an  optimistic  view  of  the 
past,  present,  or  future  of  the  world,  introduces  in 
some  form  a  rival  to  the  beneficent  Deity  of  Christian 
faith.  Two  types  of  modern  dualism  may  be  dis- 


4   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

tinguished,  one  of  which  discovers  in  the  world  of 
nature  traces  of  a  personal  rival  to  the  Good  Being, 
counter-working  His  beneficent  purpose,  while  the 
other  finds  a  foe  of  the  Divine  even  in  the  reason  of 
man.  Each  of  these  types  of  dualism  will  engage 
our  attention  in  a  separate  lecture. 

The  subject  of  the  present  lecture  is  Buddha^-  and 
his  view  of  the  moral  order  of  the  world. 

Buddha  was  the  originator  of  a  type  of  religion 
called  Buddhism,  which  to-day  is  professed  in  the 
East  by  one-third  of  the  human  race.  He  was  born 
in  India,  of  a  royal  family,  in  the  sixth  century 
before  the  Christian  era.  The  religion  of  India  had 
run  through  a  long  course  of  development  before  he 
arrived  on  the  scene.  There  was  first  the  religion  of 
the  Vedic  Indians,  a  comparatively  simple  nature- 
worship,  poetic  in  feeling,  and  cheerful  in  spirit, 
setting  a  high  value  on  the  good  things  of  this  life 
and  making  these  the  chief  objects  of  prayer.  Then 
there  came  ancient  Brahmanism,  with  its  pantheistic 
conception  of  the  universe  as  an  emanation  out  of 
Brahma,  its  view  of  the  world  as  an  unreality,  its 
elaborate  ritual,  its  asceticism,  and  its  caste  distinc- 
tions. This  system  Buddha  found  in  vogue,  and  to 
a  large  extent  accepted.  But  in  some  respects  his 
attitude  was  protestant  and  reforming.  He  dis- 
carded the  sacred  books — the  Vedic  hymns,  he  set 

1  Buddha  is  an  epithet  rather  than  a  name.  Buddha's  name  was 
Gotama  Sakya. 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER     5 

no  value  on  sacrifice,  he  treated  the  Brahmanical 
gods  with  scant  respect,  and  he  disregarded  caste,  at 
least  in  the  religious  sphere. 

In  his  religious  temper  Buddha  differed  widely 
both  from  the  Vedic  Indian  and  from  the  Brahman. 
In  the  cheerfulness  and  the  frank  worldliness  of  the 
former  he  had  no  part,  and  in  contrast  to  the  latter 
he  set  morality  above  ritual.  He  was  a  pessimist 
in  his  view  of  life,  and  he  assigned  to  the  ethical 
supreme  value.  From  the  moment  he  arrived  at  the 
years  of  reflection,  he  had  an  acute  sense  of  the 
misery  of  man.  At  length,  so  we  learn  from  biogra- 
phical notices,  a  crisis  arrived.  One  day  various 
aspects  of  human  suffering — old  age,  disease,  death 
— fell  under  his  observation,  and  thereafter  a  hermit 
came  in  view  with  a  cheerful,  peaceful  aspect  which 
greatly  struck  him.  He  was  now  resolved  what  to 
do.  He  would  forsake  the  world  and  seek  in  solitude 
the  peace  he  had  hitherto  failed  to  find.  He  with- 
drew into  the  wilderness,  and  lived  a  severely  ascetic 
life,  alone — Sakya-muni,  i.e.  Sakya  the  lonely.  Still 
he  was  not  happy,  nor  did  he  attain  peace  till  he  dis- 
covered that  the  seat  of  evil  was  in  the  soul,  and  that 
the  secret  of  tranquillity  was  to  get  rid  of  desire. 
This  seen,  Sakya-muni  had  become  Sakya-Buddha — 
Sakya  the  enlightened.  Having  found  the  way  of 
salvation  for  himself,  he  felt  impelled  by  sympathy 
with  suffering  humanity  to  make  it  known  to  others. 
He  commenced  to  preach  his  gospel  ;  in  technical 


6   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

phrase,  to  turn  the  wheel  of  the  law.  The  essence  of 
his  doctrine  was  summed  up  in  four  propositions : 
(i)  Pain  exists — pain,  the  great  fact  of  all  sentient 
life  ;  (2)  pain  is  the  result  of  existence  ;  (3)  the  anni- 
hilation of  pain  is  possible ;  (4)  the  way  to  the  desired 
end  is  self-mortification,  renunciation  of  the  world 
both  outwardly  and  inwardly.  All  who  were  willing 
to  receive  this  message,  of  whatever  caste  or  char- 
acter, were  welcome  to  the  ranks  of  discipleship. 
Discipleship  in  the  strict  sense  meant  not  merely  a 
pure  life,  but  an  ascetic  habit  in  the  solitude  of  the 
forest  or  in  the  still  retreat  of  the  monastery.  From 
being  a  few,  disciples  grew  to  be  many  through  the 
missionary  ardour  of  converts,  till  at  length  the 
sombre  faith  of  the  Buddha  became  one  of  the  great 
religions  of  the  world. 

On  that  account  alone,  if  for  no  other,  Buddhism 
would  be  entitled  to  some  notice  in  even  a  short 
study  of  the  thoughts  of  men  on  the  moral  order  of 
the  world,  unless  indeed  it  should  turn  out  that  so 
widely  diffused  a  religion  had  nothing  to  say  on  the 
subject.  That,  however,  is  so  far  from  being  the 
case  that  few  religions  have  anything  more  remark- 
able to  say.  For  Buddhism,  true  to  the  spirit  of  the 
founder,  is  an  ethical  religion.  It  finds  in  moral 
good  the  cure  of  physical  evil,  and  in  moral  evil  the 
cause  of  physical  evil.  It  asserts  with  unique  em- 
phasis a  moral  order  as  distinct  from  a  providential 
order,  the  difference  being  that  a  moral  order  is  an 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    7 

impersonal  conception,  while  a  providential  order 
implies  a  Divine  Being  who  exercises  a  providential 
oversight  over  the  world.  Even  an  atheist,  like 
Strauss,  can  believe  in  a  moral  order,  but  only  a 
theist  can  believe  in  a  Providence.  Buddha  taught 
no  doctrine  either  of  creation  or  of  providence,  or 
even  of  God.  He  was  not  an  atheist.  He  did  not 
deny  the  being  of  God,  or  of  the  gods  of  ancient 
India,  poetically  praised  in  the  hymns  of  Vedic  bards 
and  elaborately  worshipped  in  Brahmanical  ritual. 
He  treated  these  gods  somewhat  as  the  Hebrew 
worshippers  of  Jehovah  treated  the  deities  of  other 
peoples,  allowing  them  to  remain  as  part  of  the 
universe  of  being,  while  refusing  to  acknowledge 
them  as  exceptional  or  unique  in  nature,  dignity,  or 
destiny.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Buddhist  system 
to  treat  the  gods  in  this  cavalier  fashion  and  to  re- 
gard them  as  inferior  to  Buddha.  When  Buddha 
summons  them  into  his  presence  they  come ;  they 
listen  reverently  to  his  words,  and  humbly  obey  his 
behests.  Yet  Buddha  is  but  a  man,  though  more 
than  divine  in  honour.  Buddhism,  it  has  been  re- 
marked, is  the  only  religion  in  which  the  superiority 
of  man  over  the  gods  is  proclaimed  as  a  fundamental 
article  of  faith.1  That  the  destinies  of  the  world 
should  be  in  the  hands  of  such  degraded  and  dis- 
honoured beings  is  of  course  out  of  the  question. 
Equally  out  of  the  question  is  it  that  one  who 

1  Koeppen,  Die  Religion  des  Buddha  und  ihre  Entstehung,  p.  123. 


8   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

viewed  human  life  as  Buddha  viewed  it  could  pos- 
sibly believe  in  a  benignant  Providence.  Buddha's 
idea  of  life,  according  to  all  reliable  accounts,  was 
purely  pessimistic.  For  him  the  great  fact  of  life 
was  pain,  misery,  and  the  four  chief  lessons  to  be 
learnt  about  life  were  that  pain  exists  and  why,  that 
it  can  be  put  an  end  to  and  how.  Birth,  growth, 
disease,  decay,  death — behold  the  sorrowful  series  of 
events  which  make  life  a  mere  vanity  and  vexation 
of  spirit.  Such  is  it  as  we  see  it,  such  it  has  ever 
been,  such  it  ever  shall  be.  The  process  of  the  whole 
universe  is  an  eternal,  monotonous,  wearisome  suc- 
cession of  changes,  an  everlasting  becoming.  No- 
thing abides,  for  all  is  composite,  and  all  that  is 
composite  is  impermanent.  And  the  best  thing  that 
can  happen  to  a  man  is  to  be  dissolved  body  and 
soul,  and  so  find  rest  among  the  things  that  are 
not. 

While  knowing  nothing  of  a  Divine  Providence  in 
our  sense  of  the  word,  the  religion  of  Buddha  is 
honourably  distinguished  by  its  emphatic  assertion 
of  a  moral  order  of  the  world.  The  moral  order  is 
the  great  fact  for  the  Buddhist.  It  is  the  source  of 
the  physical  order.  Moral  facts  explain  the  facts  of 
human  experience.  Wrong  action  is  the  cause  of 
sorrow,  not  only  in  general  and  on  the  whole,  but  in 
detail  and  exhaustively.  What  a  man  does  or  has 
done  sometime  or  other,  explains  completely  what 
he  suffers.  I  say  'has  done,  sometime  or  other/ 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    9 

because  perfect  correspondence  between  conduct  and 
lot  is  not  held  to  be  verifiable  within  the  bounds  of 
this  present  life.  Buddha  was  fully  aware  of  the 
lack  of  correspondence  as  exhibited  in  many  startling 
contrasts  of  good  men  suffering  and  bad  men  pros- 
pering. But  he  did  not  thence  conclude  that  life  was 
a  moral  chaos,  or  that  there  was  no  law  connecting 
lot  with  conduct.  He  simply  inferred  that  to  find 
the  key  to  life's  puzzles  you  must  go  beyond  the 
bounds  of  the  present  life  and  postulate  past  lives, 
not  one  or  two,  but  myriads,  an  eternal  succession  of 
lives  if  necessary,  each  life  in  the  series  being  deter- 
mined in  its  complex  experience  by  all  that  went 
before  ;  the  very  fact  that  there  is  such  a  life  at  all — 
that  we  are  born  once  more,  being  due  to  evil 
done  in  former  lives. 

This  conception  of  successive  lives  is  so  foreign 
to  our  modes  of  thought  that  it  may  be  well  to 
dwell  on  it  a  little. 

Buddha  did  not  invent  the  doctrine  of  trans- 
migration ;  he  inherited  it  from  the  pre-existing 
Brahmanical  religion.  How  it  came  to  be  there, 
seeing  there  is  no  trace  of  it  in  the  Vedic  hymns, 
is  a  question  which  very  naturally  suggests  itself. 
Students  of  Indian  religions  have  found  the  ex- 
planation, both  of  this  theory  and  of  the  pessimistic 
conception  of  human  life  associated  with  it,  in  the 
Brahmanical  view  of  God's  relation  to  the  world, 
according  to  which  all  being  flows  out  of  Brahma 


io  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

by  way  of  emanation.1  Anthropologists  prefer  to 
see  in  the  Indian  idea  a  special  form  of  a  more 
general  primitive  belief  having  its  fact-basis  in 
observed  resemblances  between  ancestors  and  de- 
scendants, and  between  men  and  beasts,  natvely 
accounted  for  by  primitive  men  as  due  to  the  souls 
of  ancestors  passing  into  children,  and  of  men  into 
beasts.  In  higher  levels  of  culture,  as  in  India,  they 
see  this  crude  physical  theory  invested  with  ethical 
significance,  so  that '  successive  births  or  existences 
are  believed  to  carry  on  the  consequences  of  past 
and  prepare  the  antecedents  of  future  life.'2 

What  amount  of  truth  may  be  in  these  hypotheses 
it  is  not  necessary  here  to  inquire.  What  we  are 
concerned  with  is  the  relation  of  Buddha  to  the 
doctrine  in  question.  Now  at  first  it  may  seem 
strange  that  one  who  discarded  the  traditional 
theory  of  the  emanation  of  the  world  out  of  Brahma 
did  not  also  part  with  the  kindred  theory  of  trans- 
migration. But  on  reflection  we  see  that,  while  the 
latter  theory  might  have  no  attraction  for  Buddha, 
as  forming  part  of  a  merely  speculative  conception 
of  the  universe,  it  might  be  very  welcome  to  him  on 
moral  grounds.  This  is  indeed  so  much  the  case 
that,  had  he  not  found  the  theory  ready  to  his  hand, 
he  would  have  had  to  invent  it  as  a  postulate  of  his 
ethical  creed,  which  maintained  without  qualification 

1  So  e.g.  Koeppen,  p.  33. 

•  Vide  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  u.  pp.  3  and  9. 


'BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    n 

that  men  reap  as  they  sow.  That  thesis  is  not  veri- 
fiable within  the  bounds  of  the  present  life,  at  least 
not  in  a  sense  that  would  have  seemed  satisfactory 
to  Buddha.  You  must  go  beyond,  either  forward 
or  backward.  Christians  go  forward,  and  seek  in  a 
future  life  a  solution  of  the  mysteries  of  the  present. 
Buddha  went  both  forward  and  backward,  and  more 
especially  backward ;  and  with  characteristic  thorough- 
ness he  gave  to  the  hypothesis  of  transmigration,  in 
an  ethical  interest,  a  very  comprehensive  sweep, 
making  the  range  of  migration  stretch  downwards 
'from  gods  and  saints,  through  holy  ascetics, 
Brahmans,  nymphs,  kings,  counsellors,  to  actors, 
drunkards,  birds,  dancers,  cheats,  elephants,  horses, 
Sudras,  barbarians,  wild  beasts,  snakes,  worms,  in- 
sects, and  inert  things.'1 

The  application  of  the  doctrine,  in  the  Buddhistic 
system,  is  as  minute  as  it  is  wide.  For  everything 
that  happens  to  a  man  in  this  life  an  explanation  is 
sought  in  some  deed  done  in  a  former  life.  Character 
and  lot  are  not  viewed,  each,  as  a  whole,  but  every 
single  deed  and  experience  is  taken  by  itself,  and 
the  law  of  recompense  applied  to  it. 

The  Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  the  oldest  collection 
of  folk-lore,  contain  curious  illustrations  of  this 
habit  of  thought.  One  story  tells  how  once  upon  a 
time  a  Brahman  was  about  to  kill  a  goat  for  a  feast, 
how  the  intended  victim  had  once  itself  been  a 

1  Tylor,  ii.  p.  9. 


12  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Brahman  and  for  killing  a  goat  for  a  feast  had  had 
its  head  cut  off  in  five  hundred  births,  and  how  it 
warned  the  Brahman  that  if  he  killed  it  he  in  turn 
would  incur  the  misery  of  having  his  head  cut 
off  five  hundred  times.  The  moral  is  given  in  this 
homely  stanza : — 

*  If  people  would  but  understand 
That  this  would  cause  a  birth  in  woe, 
The  living  would  not  slay  the  living  ; 
For  he  who  taketh  life  shall  surely  grieve.'1 

A  less  grotesque  instance  is  supplied  in  the 
pathetic  history  of  Kunala,  a  son  of  the  famous 
King  Asoka,  the  Constantine  of  Buddhism,  related 
at  length  by  Burnouf  in  his  admirable  Introduction 
to  the  History  of  Indian  Buddhism.  Kunala  had 
beautiful  eyes,  which  awakened  sinful  desire  in  a 
woman  who,  like  his  mother,  was  one  of  Asoka's 
wives.  Repulsed,  she  conceived  the  wicked  design 
of  destroying  his  beauty  by  putting  out  his  eyes, 
and  carried  out  her  purpose  on  the  first  opportunity. 
From  our  point  of  view  this  was  a  case  of  innocence 
suffering  at  the  hands  of  the  unrighteous,  an  Indian 
Joseph  victimised  by  an  Indian  Potiphar's  wife. 
But  this  did  not  content  the  Buddhist.  He  asked 
what  had  Kunala  done  in  a  previous  life  to  deserve 
such  a  fate,  and  he  received  from  his  teacher  the 
reply :  Once  upon  a  time,  in  a  previous  life,  Kunala 
was  a  huntsman.  Coming  upon  a  herd  of  five 

1  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  or  J&taka  Tales,  No.  1 8. 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER   13 

hundred  gazelles  in  a  cavern  he  put  out  the  eyes  of 
them  all.  For  that  action  he  suffered  the  pains  of 
hell  for  many  hundred  thousand  years,  and  there- 
after had  his  eyes  put  out  five  hundred  times  in 
as  many  human  lives.1 

Buddha  had  to  go  forward  as  well  as  backward  in 
order  to  give  full  validity  to  his  austere  conception 
of  the  moral  order.  As  in  this  life  men  enjoy  and 
surfer  for  the  good  or  evil  done  in  former  lives,  so, 
he  taught,  must  there  be  suffering  and  enjoyment  in 
some  future  life  or  world  for  corresponding  deeds 
done  here.  For  the  expression  '  good  or  evil  done ' 
Buddhism  has  one  word,  *  Karma.'  It  will  be  con- 
venient to  use  it  for  the  longer  phrase,  as  denoting 
merit  and  demerit,  or  character.  The  Buddhistic 
doctrine  then  is  that  the  Karma  of  this  life  demands 
a  future  life,  as  this  life  presupposes  and  answers 
to  the  Karma  of  past  lives.  A  *  future  life,'  I  have 
said  ;  by  which  we  should,  of  course,  understand  our 
own  life,  implying  personal  identity,  continuity  of 
the  soul's  existence.  Experts,  however,  are  agreed 
that  that  is  not  the  genuine  thought  of  Buddhists. 
The  soul  for  them  is  only  a  bundle  of  mental  states 
without  any  substratum  ;  therefore,  like  all  com- 
posites, dissoluble  and  impermanent.  Therefore, 

1  Burnouf,  Introduction  h  FHistoire  du  Buddhisme  Indien,  pp.  360- 
370.  The  hunter  put  out  their  eyes  instead  of  killing  them  because  he 
would  not  know  what  to  do  with  so  much  dead  meat.  The  blinded 
animals  would  not  be  able  to  escape,  and  could  be  killed  at  con- 
venience. 


14   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

though  in  popular  conception  transmigration  means 
transmigration  of  the  soul,  for  the  disciple  of  Buddha 
it  means  transmigration  of  Karma,  that  is,  of  char- 
acter. Mr.  Rhys  Davids,  one  of  the  best  informed  of 
our  authorities,  expresses  this  view  in  these  terms: 
'  I  have  no  hesitation  in  maintaining  that  Gotama 
did  not  teach  the  transmigration  of  souls.  What  he 
did  teach  would  be  better  summarised,  if  we  wish  to 
retain  the  word  transmigration,  as  the  transmigration 
of  character.  But  it  would  be  more  accurate  to 
drop  the  word  transmigration  altogether  when 
speaking  of  Buddhism,  and  to  call  its  doctrine  the 
doctrine  of  Karma.  Gotama  held  that,  after  the 
death  of  any  being,  whether  human  or  not,  there 
survived  nothing  at  all  but  that  being's  Karma,  the 
result,  that  is,  of  its  mental  and  bodily  actions.'1 

This  transmigration  or  survival  of  character 
appears  to  us  a  very  strange  idea,  but  as  Mr.  Huxley 
has  remarked,2  something  analogous  to  it  may  be 
found  in  the  more  familiar  fact  of  heredity,  the  trans- 
mission from  parents  to  offspring  of  tendencies  to 
particular  ways  of  acting.  Heredity  helps  to  make 
the  idea  of  transmitted  Karma  more  intelligible,  and 
at  the  same  time  enables  us  in  some  degree  to  get 
over  the  feeling  of  its  objectionableness  on  the  score 
of  morality.  On  first  view,  it  seems  an  outrage  on 
justice  that  my  Karma  should  be  handed  on  to 

1  The  Hibbert  Lectures,  1881,  p.  92. 
1  Evolution  and  Ethics,  p.  6l. 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER   15 

another  person  that  he  may  bear  the  consequences 
of  what  I  have  done.  If  my  soul  survived  death  and 
passed  into  another  form  of  incorporated  life  in 
which  I,  the  same  person,  reaped  the  harvest  of  what 
I  had  sown  in  a  previous  life,  no  such  objection 
would  arise.  But  how,  one  is  inclined  to  ask,  can 
it  serve  the  ends  of  the  moral  order,  that  one  should 
sow  in  conduct  what  another  reaps  in  experience? 
It  is  a  very  natural  question,  yet  the  thing  com- 
plained of  is  essentially  involved  in  moral  heredity. 
Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  and  whatever  construction 
is  to  be  put  upon  it,  it  is  certainly  an  actual  fact  of 
the  moral  world. 

While  an  analogy,  instructive  in  some  respects, 
exists  between  heredity  and  Karma,  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  identify  them.  Heredity  operates  within 
the  same  species,  every  animal  producing  its  kind  ; 
Karma  roams  through  all  species  of  animated  being, 
so  that  the  Karma  of  a  man  living  now  may  be 
handed  on  some  day  to  an  elephant,  a  horse,  or  a  dog. 
Heredity  is  transmitted  by  generation  ;  according  to 
the  developed  ontology  of  Buddhism  Karma  can 
work  without  the  aid  of  a  material  instrumentality.1 
Heredity  asserts  its  power  in  spite  of  great  moral 
changes  in  the  individual  who  transmits  his  qualities 
to  his  offspring.  A  saintly  father  who,  by  self-dis- 
cipline, has  gained  victory  over  evil  propensity  may 
transmit,  nevertheless,  an  inheritance  of  evil  bias  to 

1  Hardy,  A  Manual  of  Buddhism  in  its  Mode rn  Development^  p.  395.- 


t6  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

his  children.  A  Buddhist  Arahat  who,  by  sublime 
virtue,  has  attained  Nirvana,  escapes  from  the  sway 
of  the  Karma  law,  and,  though  he  may  leave  behind 
him  a  family  born  before  he  retired  into  the  monastic 
life,  he  has  no  successor  who  takes  upon  him  his 
moral  responsibilities.  Finally,  in  heredity  the  pecu- 
liarity of  both  parents,  not  to  speak  of  atavistic 
or  collateral  contributions,  are  mixed  in  the  char- 
acter of  offspring.  Karma,  on  the  other  hand,  is, 
as  I  understand,  an  isolated  entity.  Each  man  has 
his  own  Karma,  which  demands  embodiment  in  an 
independent  life  for  the  working  out  of  its  moral 
results. 

Karma  then  demands  another  life  to  bear  its  fruit. 
But  how  is  the  demand  supplied  ?  Now  we  know  how 
Kant  answered  an  analogous  question,  viz. :  How  is 
the  correspondence  between  character  and  lot — that 
which  ought  to  be  and  therefore  sometime  shall  be — 
to  be  brought  about?  Only,  said  Kant,  through  the 
power  of  a  Being  who  is  head  both  of  the  physical  and 
of  the  moral  universe — God,  a  necessary  postulate  of 
the  practical  reason,  or  conscience.  But  in  Buddha's 
system  there  was  no  god  with  such  powers.  The 
gods,  in  his  view,  far  from  being  able  to  order  all 
things  so  as  to  meet  the  requirements  of  Karma,  were 
themselves  subject  to  its  sway.  How  then  are  these 
requirements  to  be  met  ?  The  answer  must  be,  that 
Buddhism  assigns  to  Karma  the  force  of  physical 
causation.  The  moral  postulate  is  turned  into  a 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    17 

natural  cause.  The  moral  demand  literally  creates 
the  needful  supply.  Karma  becomes  a  substitute 
for  Kant's  Deity.  Similar  confusion  runs  through 
the  whole  system. 

Another  source  of  the  endless  succession  of  exist- 
ence must  now  be  mentioned.  It  is  Desire,  the  will 
to  live.  Desire  for  life  originates  new  life.  This 
Buddhistic  tenet  is  a  new  form  of  the  old  Brah- 
manical  account  of  the  origin  of  the  world,  based 
on  a  hymn  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Rig-veda,  where 
we  find  the  theory  that  the  universe  originated  in 
Desire  na'fvely  hinted  in  the  following  lines  : — 

'The   One   breathed   calmly,    self-sustained,  nought    else 

beyond  it  lay. 

Gloom  hid  in  gloom  existed  first — one  sea,  eluding  view, 
That  One,  a  void  in  chaos  wrapt,  by  inward  fervour  grew. 
Within  it  first  arose  Desire,  the  primal  germ  of  mind, 
Which  nothing  with  existence  links,  as  sages  searching 

find.'1 

The  only  difference  between  Brahmanism  and 
Buddhism  here  is  that  in  the  former  the  desire 
which  sets  in  motion  the  stream  of  existence  is  in 
Brahma,  in  the  latter  it  is  in  individual  sentient 
beings,  the  cosmological  and  pantheistic  significance 
of  the  Brahmanical  dogma  being  translated  into  an 
anthropological  and  ethical  one.2  How  desire,  either 
in  Brahma  or  in  the  individual  man,  could  have  such 
power  is,  of  course,  an  unfathomable  mystery.  Most 

1  Muir,  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  v.  p.  356. 

2  Koeppen,  Die  Religion  des  Buddha,  p.  294. 

6 


i8   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  us,  I  suspect,  will  agree  with  Mr.  Rhys  Davids 
when  he  bluntly  declares  that  Buddha  attached  to 
desire,  as  a  real,  sober  fact,  an  influence  and  a  power 
which  has  no  actual  existence.1 

But  suppose  we  concede  to  desire  all  the  power 
claimed  for  it,  this  question  arises :  Might  it  not  be 
possible  to  give  transmigration  the  slip,  to  break  the 
continuity  of  existence,  to  annul  the  inexorable  law 
of  Karma,  by  ceasing  from  desire?  Yes,  joyfully, 
ecstatically,  answered  Buddha ;  and  the  reply  is  in 
brief  the  gist  of  the  complementary  doctrine  of 
Nirvana.  Karma  and  Nirvana  are  the  great  key- 
words of  Buddhism.  They  represent  opposite,  con- 
flicting tendencies.  Karma  clamours  for  continuance 
of  being,  Nirvana  craves  and  works  for  its  cessation. 
There  is,  as  all  must  see,  an  antinomy  here.  Why 
should  we  cease  to  desire,  if  continuance  of  the 
stream  of  being  is  demanded  by  Karma?  What 
higher  interest  can  there  be  than  that  of  the  moral 
order?  Ought  not  good  men  rather  to  cling  to  life 
for  the  very  purpose  of  providing  scope  for  the  dis- 
play of  that  order? 

The  precise  meaning  attached  by  Buddhists  to  the 
term  'Nirvana'  has  been  the  subject  of  much  dis- 
cussion. Some  have  taken  it  as  signifying  the 
annihilation  of  the  soul,  while  others  have  assigned 
to  it  the  directly  opposite  sense  of  a  perpetuated  life 
of  the  soul  in  a  future  state  of  bliss.  The  former  of 

1  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  113. 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    19 

these  views  can  hardly  be  correct,  seeing  the  cessa- 
tion of  soul-life  takes  place  at  death  in  the  natural 
course  of  things,  whereas  Nirvana,  whatever  it  be,  is 
attained  by  moral  effort.  The  latter  view,  while  not 
without  support  in  popular  Buddhistic  conceptions, 
is  not  in  accordance  with  the  genius  of  the  system. 
Nirvana  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  state  of  mind  attain- 
able in  this  life,  the  cessation  of  desire  rather  than 
of  existence.  According  to  Mr.  Rhys  Davids,  the 
nearest  analogue  to  it  in  Western  thought  is  'the 
kingdom  of  heaven  that  is  within  a  man,  the  peace 
that  passeth  understanding.' l  But  this  inward  con- 
dition reached  by  the  perfect  man,  the  arahat,  has  an 
important  objective  result.  It  suspends  the  action 
of  the  law  of  Karma,  breaks  the  chain  of  successive 
existence,  prevents  another  life,  bearing  its  prede- 
cessor's responsibilities,  from  coming  into  being.  In 
the  words  of  Mr.  Davids,  *  When  the  arahat,  the  man 
made  perfect,  according  to  the  Buddhist  faith,  ceases 
to  live,  no  new  lamp,  no  new  sentient  being,  will  be 
lighted  by  the  flame  of  any  weak  or  ignorant  longing 
entertained  by  him.'2  It  is  another  instance  of  the 
Buddhist  habit  of  turning  moral  postulates  into 
physical  causes.  Our  first  example  was  taken  from 
Karma.  Karma  demands  another  life  to  bear  its 
fruit ;  therefore,  according  to  Buddhist  ways  of  think- 
ing, it  produces  the  life  required.  Even  so  with 
Nirvana.  It  demands  the  suspension  of  the  law  of 

1  Hibbert  Lectures >  p.  31.  a  Ibid.t  p.  101. 


20   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Karma,  therefore  it  ensures  it  Hence,  if  all  men 
were  to  become  Arahats  and  attain  Nirvana,  the 
result  ought  to  be  the  eventual  extinction  of  ani- 
mated being. 

Other  illustrations  of  the  same  mental  habit  are 
not  wanting.  The  marvellous  abstraction  called 
Karma  not  only  creates  a  succession  of  individual 
lives,  but  even  a  succession  of  worlds  wherein  to 
work  out  adequately  the  great  problem  of  moral 
retribution.  The  cosmology  of  developed  Buddhism 
is  a  grotesque,  mad-looking  scheme.  But  there  is 
method  in  the  madness.  It  is  the  moral  interest 
that  reigns  here  as  everywhere,  which,  once  it  is  per- 
ceived, redeems  from  utter  dreariness  pages  concern- 
ing innumerable  worlds  in  space  and  time  that  seem 
to  contain  but  the  idle  dreams  of  an  unbridled, 
fantastic  Eastern  imagination.  For  that  which  gives 
rise  to  the  whole  phantasmagory  is  the  need  of  end- 
less time  to  exhaust  the  results  of  Karma.  The  fruit 
of  an  action  does  not  necessarily  ripen  soon ;  it  may 
take  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Kalpas  to  mature. 
What  is  a  Kalpa?  A  great  Kalpa  is  the  period 
beginning  with  the  origin  of  a  world  and  extending 
beyond  its  dissolution  to  the  commencement  of  a 
new  succeeding  world.  This  great  Kalpa  is  divisible 
into  four  Kalpas,  each  representing  a  stage  in  the 
cosmic  process  of  origination  and  dissolution.  The 
four  together  cover  a  time  of  inconceivable  length, 
immeasurably  longer  than  would  be  the  time  required 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    21 

to  wear  away  by  the  touch  of  a  cloth  of  delicate 
texture,  once  in  a  hundred  years,  a  solid  rock  sixteen 
miles  broad  and  as  many  high.  Yet,  long  as  is  the 
period  of  a  great  Kalpa,  it  may  require  many  such  to 
bring  to  maturity  the  fruit  of  an  action  done  by  a 
man  during  his  earthly  life  of  three-score  years  and 
ten.  Therefore,  as  one  world  does  not  last  long 
enough  for  the  purpose,  there  must  be  a  succession 
of  worlds.  Karma  demands  them,  therefore  Karma 
creates  them.  The  Fiat  of  almighty  Karma  goes 
forth  :  Let  there  be  worlds ;  and  world  after  world 
starts  into  being  in  obedience  to  its  behest.  Worlds 
exist  only  for  moral  ends — to  afford  adequate  scope 
for  the  realisation  of  the  moral  order. 

There  is  something  sublime  as  well  as  grotesque 
in  this  cosmological  creation  of  the  Buddhist  con- 
science. And  one  cannot  but  admire  the  moral 
intensity  which  conceived  it  possible  for  an  action, 
good  or  evil,  to  be  quickened  into  fruitfulness  after 
the  lapse  of  millions  on  millions  of  years,  during 
which  it  lay  dormant.  This  long  delay  of  the  moral 
harvest  gives  rise  to  a  curious  anomaly  in  the 
Buddhist  theory  of  future  rewards  and  punishments. 
It  is  this :  men  who  have  lived  good  lives  in  this 
world  may  go  at  death  into  a  place  of  damnation, 
and  men  who  have  lived  here  bad  lives  may  pass 
into  the  heaven  of  the  gods.  The  damnation  in  the 
one  case  is  the  late  fruitage  of  some  evil  deed  done 
in  long  bygone  ages,  and  the  bliss,  in  the  other,  the 


22   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

tardy  recompense  of  a  good  deed  done  in  a  previous 
state  of  existence.  This  seems  a  perilous  doctrine 
to  preach,  presenting  as  it  does  to  the  hopes  and 
fears  of  men  prospects  for  the  near  future  which 
appear  like  a  reversal  of  the  normal  law  of  retribu- 
tion. 

Thus  far  of  Karma  and  Nirvana.  I  now  add  a 
brief  statement  on  Buddhist  conceptions  concerning 
the  experience  and  functions  of  a  Buddha. 

In  view  of  the  infinitely  slow  action  of  the  law  of 
retribution  and  the  strangely  incongruous  experiences 
of  intermediate  states,  one  can  imagine  what  an 
interminably  long  and  endlessly  varied  career  one 
must  pass  through  whose  ultimate  destiny  it  is  to 
become  a  Buddha — one,  that  is,  perfectly  enlightened, 
completely  master  of  desire,  sinless,  and  no  more  in 
danger  of  sinning.  One  wonders,  indeed,  how  there 
ever  could  be  such  a  being.  The  Buddhist  creed 
certainly  cannot  be  charged  with  representing  the 
making  of  a  Buddha  as  an  easy  thing.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  is  believed  to  have  passed  through  many 
existences  under  many  forms  of  being,  and  in  various 
states  of  being :  now  an  animal,  then  a  man,  then  a 
god  ;  at  one  time  damned,  at  another  time  beatified  ; 
in  one  life  virtuous,  in  another  criminal ;  but  on  the 
whole  moving  on,  slowly  accumulating  merits  which 
are  eventually  crowned  with  the  honours  of  Buddha- 
hood.1 

1  Burnouf,  Introduction,  etc.,  p.  120. 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    23 

One  who  has  passed  through  such  an  adventurous 
history,  and  has  at  length  arrived  safely  at  the  goal 
of  perfect  wisdom  and  goodness,  must  be  a  very 
valuable  person  when  he  comes  into  a  world  like 
this,  full  of  ignorance,  misery,  and  sin.  What  will  be 
his  function?  What  can  he  do  for  the  race  into 
which  he  has  been  born  ?  For  the  Buddhist  there  is 
only  one  possible  vocation  for  a  Buddha.  He  cannot 
save  men  by  vicarious  goodness  or  suffering.  Every 
man  must  be  his  own  saviour,  working  out  his  salva- 
tion, as  Buddha  worked  out  his,  through  the  ages 
and  worlds,  through  beasthood,  godhood,  devilhood, 
to  perfect  manhood  in  some  far-distant  future  aeon. 
But  a  Buddha  can  tell  men  the  way  of  self-salvation. 
He  can  preach  to  them  the  gospel  of  despair,  declar- 
ing that  life  is  not  worth  living,  that  birth  is  the 
penalty  of  previous  sin,  that  the  peace  of  Nirvana  is 
to  be  reached  by  the  extirpation  of  the  will  to  live, 
and  by  gentle  compassion  towards  all  living  creatures. 
This  was  how  Gotama,  the  Buddha  who  was  born  in 
India  some  six  centuries  before  the  Christian  era, 
occupied  himself,  after  he  became  enlightened  ;  and 
such  must  be  the  vocation  of  all  possible  Buddhas. 

Of  all  possible  Buddhas,  I  say,  for  to  the  followers 
of  Gotama  a  plurality  of  Buddhas  is  not  only  possible 
but  even  necessary.  Buddhist  imagination  has  been 
busy  here,  as  in  the  manufacture  of  worlds.  The 
Christian  knows  of  only  one  Christ,  but  the  Buddhist 
knows  of  many  Buddhas.  The  Buddhists  of  the 


24   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

North,  according  to  Burnouf,  believing  in  an  infini- 
tude of  worlds  situated  in  ten  regions  of  space, 
believe  also  in  an  infinite  number  of  Buddhas,  or 
candidates  for  the  honour,  co-existing  at  the  same 
time.  The  popular  pantheon  includes  two  kinds  of 
Buddhas :  a  human  species,  and  another  described 
as  immaterial  Buddhas  of  contemplation.  The 
theistic  school  of  Nepaul  has  an  Ur-Buddha,  a  kind 
of  divine  head  of  all  the  Buddhas.  But,  according 
to  the  same  distinguished  authority  from  whom  I 
have  taken  these  particulars,  primitive  Buddhism,  as 
set  forth  in  the  short,  simple  Sutras,  knows  only  of 
human  Buddhas,  and  of  only  one  Buddha  living  in 
the  world  at  the  same  time.1 

Faith  in  a  succession  of  Buddhas  seems  to  be 
common  to  all  Buddhistic  schools.  This  faith  has 
no  basis  in  historical  knowledge :  it  is  simply  the 
creature  of  theory.  If  asked  to  justify  itself  it  might 
advance  three  pleas :  possibility,  need,  necessity. 
Possibility,  for  it  is  always  possible  that  in  the  long 
course  of  ages  a  man  should  make  his  appearance 
who  has  attained  the  virtue  of  Buddhahood.  One 
actual  Buddha  proves  the  possibility  of  others. 
Looking  at  the  matter  a  priori,  one  might  be  inclined 
to  doubt  whether  in  the  eternal  succession  of  exist- 
ence even  so  much  as  one  Buddha  could  ever 
appear.  A  candidate  for  the  high  distinction  (called 
a  Bodhisat)  must  become  a  proficient  in  the  six  great 

1  Burnouf,  Introduction^  pp.  97-107. 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    25 

virtues  '  which  conduct  to  the  further  shore ' :  sym- 
pathy, purity,  patience,  energy,  contemplation, 
wisdom.  One  can  imagine  a  human  being  working 
at  the  heroic  task  in  his  own  person,  or  through  the 
successive  inheritors  of  his  Karma,  during  countless 
aeons,  in  millions  of  existences,  and  after  all  failing 
in  the  task.  The  chances  are  millions  to  one  against 
its  ever  being  achieved.  But  then  Gotama  was  a 
Buddha,  and  in  presence  of  that  one  fact  all  a  priori 
reasoning  falls  to  the  ground.  The  thing  has 
happened  once,  and  it  may  happen  again  and  again. 
And  it  is  very  desirable  that  it  should  happen 
repeatedly.  Need  justifies  faith.  How  important 
that  in  each  new  world  as  it  arises  a  Buddha  should 
appear  to  set  the  wheel  of  doctrine  in  motion,  to 
unfold  the  banner  of  the  good  law,  and  so  inaugurate 
a  new  era  of  revelation  and  redemption !  It  is 
abstractly  possible,  of  course,  that  no  Buddha  might 
come  just  when  one  was  most  wanted,  or  that  a 
Buddha  might  arrive  on  the  scene  when  there  was 
no  urgent  need  for  him,  or  that  a  multitudinous 
epiphany  of  Buddhas  might  take  place  at  the  same 
time  ;  for  the  Buddhist  theory  of  the  universe  knows 
of  no  Providence  over  all  that  can  arrange  for  the 
appearance  on  the  scene  of  its  elect  agents  when 
their  work  is  ready  for  them,  and  so  plan  that  there 
shall  be  no  waste  of  power.  But  even  a  Buddhist 
may  hope  that  the  fitness  of  things  will  somehow  be 
observed ;  and  for  the  rest  the  imperious  demands  of 


26   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

theory  must  be  complied  with.  The  way  to  Nirvana 
must  be  shown  to  the  blind,  and  the  competent 
leader  must  be  forthcoming.  Stat  pro  ratione 
voluntas. 

But  why  cannot  the  one  historic  Buddha  who  was 
born  in  Kapilavastu  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ 
meet  all  requirements  ?  Well,  for  one  reason,  be- 
coming, succession,  is  the  supreme  cosmological 
category  of  Buddhism,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that, 
in  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the  system,  the 
category  was  applied  also  to  Buddhahood.  There  is 
an  eternal  succession  of  Kalpas,  of  destructions  and 
renovations  of  worlds ;  why  not  also  an  unending 
series  of  Buddhas  ?  But,  granting  that  a  succession 
of  Buddha-advents  is  required  by  the  genius  of  the 
system,  why  should  it  not  be  simply  a  series  of 
re-appearances  on  the  part  of  one  and  the  same 
Buddha?  Because  all  things  in  this  universe  are 
impermanent,  Buddhas  not  excepted ;  nay,  they 
more  than  all,  for  existence  is  a  curse,  and  it  is  the 
privilege  of  a  Buddha  to  escape  from  it  absolutely, 
his  own  candle  of  life  going  out,  and  not  lighting, 
by  his  Karma,  the  lamp  of  a  new  life  in  another. 
Gotama  is  to-day  only  a  memory,  and  nothing  re- 
mains of  him  for  his  disciples  to  worship  except  his 
bones  scattered  here  and  there  over  the  lands. 

This  series  of  Buddhas,  as  already  stated,  is  simply 
the  creature  of  theory.  Once  more  a  moral  postulate 
is  turned  into  an  efficient  cause.  Buddhas  are 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    27 

needed  at  recurrent  intervals,  therefore  Buddhas  are 
forthcoming  in  spite  of  antecedent  improbabilities. 
Of  these  Buddhas,  countless  in  number,  nothing  is 
known,  save  in  the  case  of  one.  Pretended  know- 
ledge simply  makes  the  careers  of  all  the  rest  a  fac- 
simile of  the  career  of  that  one.  All  are  born  in 
middle-India  ;  their  mothers  die  on  the  seventh  day 
after  birth  ;  all  are  in  similar  way  tempted  by  Mara, 
and  gain  victory  over  the  tempter ;  all  begin  to  turn 
the  wheel  of  the  law  in  a  wood,  near  the  city  of 
Benares  ;  all  have  two  favourite  disciples,  and  so  on. 
The  story  of  these  imaginary  Buddhas  is  evermore 
but  the  monotonous  repetition  of  the  legendary 
history  of  Gotama. 

In  proceeding  to  offer  some  critical  observations 
on  the  Buddhist  conception  of  life  and  of  the  moral 
order,  I  must  begin  with  the  remark  that  the  great 
outstanding  merit  of  this  religion  is  its  intensely 
ethical  spirit.  In  Buddhism  virtue,  in  the  Indian 
passive  sense — self-sacrifice,  sympathy,  meekness — is 
supreme.  It  was  indeed  characteristic  of  ancient 
Indian  religion  under  all  forms  to  assign  sovereign 
value  and  power  to  virtue  in  some  shape.  Even  in 
the  Veda,  with  all  its  naturalism,  and  its  secular  con- 
ception of  the  summum  bonum>  prayer,  penitence, 
sanctity,  wisdom,  are  represented  as  more  powerful 
than  the  gods,  as  making  men  gods.  But  Buddhism 
rises  to  the  purest  conception  of  what  virtue  is, 


28   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

making  it  consist,  not  in  meditation  or  self-torture, 
or  work-holiness,  but  in  inward  purity  and  the  utter 
uprooting  of  selfish  desire.  And,  in  opposition  to 
Brahmanism,  the  new  religion  showed  the  sincerity 
and  depth  of  its  ethical  spirit  by  treating  caste  dis- 
tinctions as  of  subordinate  importance  compared  with 
ethical  qualities.  It  did  not  meddle  with  caste  as  a 
social  institution,  but  it  treated  it  as  irrelevant  in  the 
religious  sphere.  It  invited  all,  of  whatever  caste,  to 
enter  on  the  new  path,  believing  all  capable  of  com- 
plying with  its  requirements  ;  and  in  the  new  brother- 
hood all  invidious  distinctions  were  ignored.  'My 
law  is  a  law  of  grace  for  all,'  Buddha  is  reported  to 
have  said.  Whether  he  uttered  it  or  not,  the  saying 
truly  reflects  his  attitude  and  the  genius  of  his 
religion.  It  is  in  principle  revolutionary,  and,  had 
the  virtue  of  Buddhists  not  been  of  the  quietistic 
type,  treating  all  secularities  as  matters  of  indiffer- 
ence, it  might  have  ended  in  the  abolition  of  caste, 
as  the  Christian  faith  led  to  the  eventual  abolition  of 
slavery. 

One  wonders  why  a  moral  consciousness  so  robust 
did  not  give  birth  to  a  reformed  faith  in  God  and  in 
Providence.  We  have  seen  what  it  was  equal  to  in 
connection  with  the  doctrine  of  Karma.  To  Karma 
it  assigned  the  functions  both  of  creation  and  of 
providence.  Karma  is  in  fact  a  substitute  for  God. 
By  the  aggregate  Karma  of  the  various  orders  of 
living  beings  the  present  worlds  were  brought  into 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    29 

existence,  and  their  general  economy  is  controlled. 
Karma  creates  and  governs  the  world,  because  it 
postulates  a  world  adapted  to  the  working  out  of  its 
requirements.  Why  not  rather  believe  in  a  God 
who  is  at  the  head  both  of  the  physical  and  the 
moral  worlds,  and  therefore  able  to  make  the  two 
correspond?  That  surely  is  the  true  postulate  of 
every  system  which  makes  the  ethical  supreme. 
Its  failure  to  see  this  is  the  radical  defect  of  the 
Buddhistic  theory  of  the  universe. 

The  failure  was  due  to  two  causes. 

First,  the  traditional  gods  of  India  were  unworthy 
to  hold  their  place  in  the  faith  and  worship  of  men. 
When  a  severe  moral  temper  began  to  prevail, 
sceptical  reaction  was  inevitable.  Reaction  towards 
atheism  is  to  be  expected  whenever  a  religious  creed 
has  degenerated  into  a  set  of  dogmas  in  which  the 
human  spirit  cannot  rest ;  or  when  a  creed,  in  itself 
pure,  has  become  associated  with  an  ignoble  life. 
And  a  virtuous  atheism  of  reaction  is  a  better  thing 
than  the  unvirtuous  insincere  theism  or  pantheism  it 
seeks  to  replace.  Buddhism  was  a  virtuous  atheism 
of  reaction  which  sought  /to  replace  the  prevalent 
Brahmanical  pantheism.  And  as  such  it  was  rela- 
tively justified,  a  better  thing  than  it  found,  if  not  an 
absolutely  good  thing. 

But  why  remain  in  the  reactionary  stage?  why 
not  strive  after  a  reformed  idea  of  God  ?  Why  not 
go  back  to  the  Vedic  idea  of  a  Heaven-Father, 


30   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Dyauspitar,  and  charge  it  with  new,  ethical  contents, 
so  giving  to  the  world  centuries  before  the  Christian 
era  a  Father  in  heaven,  possessing  moral  attributes 
such  as  Buddha  admired  and  practised — benignant, 
kind,  gracious,  patient,  forgiving  ?  The  question  leads 
up  to  the  second  cause  of  Buddha's  theological  short- 
coming. It  was  due  to  his  pessimistic  interpretation 
of  human  life.  Life  being  utterly  worthless,  how 
could  a  Father-God  be  believed  in?  Buddha's 
ethical  ideal  and  his  reading  of  life  were  thus  in 
conflict  with  each  other.  The  one  suggested  as  its 
appropriate  complement  a  benignant  God  over  all ; 
the  other  made  the  existence  of  such  a  Deity  in- 
credible :  and  the  force  on  the  side  of  negation  proved 
to  be  the  stronger.  And  yet  the  judgment  on  life 
which  landed  in  virtual  atheism  was  surely  a  mistake. 
All  is  not  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  '  The  earth 
is  full  of  the  goodness  of  the  Lord,'  declares  a 
Hebrew  psalmist.  Why  should  Hebrews  and  Indians 
think  so  differently,  living  in  the  same  world  and 
passing  through  the  same  experiences  of  birth, 
growth,  disease,  decay,  death?  Do  race,  tempera- 
ment, climate,  geographical  position,  explain  the 
contrast  ? 

Out  of  this  great  error  concerning  life  sprang  an- 
other equally  portentous,  the  idea  of  Nirvana  as  the 
summum  bonum.  Life,  taught  Buddha,  is  inherently 
miserable ;  therefore  let  wise  men  cease  to  desire  it, 
and  abstain  from  kindling  with  the  taper  of  Karma 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    31 

the  light  of  another  life.  Perfectly  logical  reasoning; 
but  observe  in  what  an  antinomy  the  Buddhist  is 
thus  landed  between  Karma  on  the  one  hand  and 
Nirvana  on  the  other.  Karma  and  Nirvana  are 
irreconcilable  antagonists.  The  one  creates,  the 
other  destroys,  worlds.  Let  Karma  have  its  way,  and 
the  stream  of  successive  existences  will  flow  on  for 
ever.  Let  Nirvana  have  its  way,  and  men  will  cease 
to  be,  and  the  worlds  will  perish  along  with  them. 
It  is  a  dualism  in  its  kind,  as  decided  as  that  pre- 
sented in  the  Persian  religion,  but  with  this  difference: 
the  Persian  twin  spirits  are  opposite  in  character,  the 
one  good,  the  other  evil ;  the  Indian  antagonists, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  both  good,  Karma  represent- 
ing the  moral  order, — righteousness,  Nirvana,  the 
summum  bonum.  It  is  a  fatal  thing  when  these  two 
come  into  collision. 

The  Buddhist  conception  of  Karma  is  as  fantastic 
as  its  doctrine  of  Nirvana  is  morbid.  Its  atomistic 
idea  of  merit  and  demerit,  as  adhering  to  individual 
acts  instead  of  to  conduct  as  a  whole,  destroys  the 
unity  of  character;  and  its'  theory  of  indefinitely 
delayed  retribution  is  as  baseless  as  it  is  mischievous 
in  tendency.  The  resulting  view  of  the  world- 
process  presents  the  spectacle  of  a  moral  chaos  rather 
than  a  broad  intelligible  embodiment  of  sowing  and 
reaping  in  the  moral  universe.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
point  out  how  entirely  diverse  the  world-process  of 
Buddhist  ethical  theory  is  from  that  implied  in  the 


32   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

modern  theory  of  evolution.  In  the  evolutionary 
theory  the  world  moves  steadily  onward  from  lower 
to  higher  forms  of  life  till  it  culminates  in  man.  On 
the  Buddhist  theory  the  universe  is  turned  topsy- 
turvy. The  higher  may  come  before  the  lower, 
according  to  the  requirements  of  the  law  of  Karma. 
Man  comes  first  of  all,  not  at  the  end  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process,  as  its  crown  and  climax ;  for  moral 
acts  are  the  prius  and  cause  of  physical  creation. 
There  had  been  no  world  unless  man,  with  his  merit 
and  demerit,  had  previously  been.  Under  the  modern 
conception  physical  causality  and  moral  aims  have 
their  distinct  value,  under  law  to  a  supreme  Cause 
who  controls  all,  and  makes  the  two  worlds  work  in 
concert.  Under  the  Buddhist  conception  physical 
causation  counts  for  nothing ;  moral  requirements 
alone  find  recognition :  and  the  result  is  a  fantastic 
see-saw,  a  wild  fluctuation  in  the  history  of  moral 
agents  who  may  be  gods  at  one  time,  men  at  another, 
beasts  at  a  still  later  stage  of  their  existence. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  its  defects,  theoretical  and 
practical,  the  religious  movement  originated  by 
Buddha  may  be  numbered  among  the  forces  which 
have  contributed  in  a  signal  degree  to  the  moral 
amelioration  of  the  world.  Its  ethical  idea,  if  one- 
sided, is  pure  and  elevated.  It  has  helped  millions 
to  live  sweet,  peaceful  lives  in  retirement  from  the 
world,  if  it  has  not  nerved  men  to  play  the  part  of 
heroes  in  the  world.  It  has  soothed  the  pain  of 


BUDDHA  AND  THE  MORAL  ORDER    33 

despair,  if  it  has  not  inspired  hope,  and  has  thus,  as 
Bunsen  remarks,  produced  the  effect  of  a  mild  dose 
of  opium  on  the  tribes  of  weary-hearted  Asia.1  This 
is  all  it  is  fitted  to  do,  even  at  the  best.  The 
Buddhism  even  of  Buddha  was  at  most  but  an 
anodyne,  sickly  in  temper  while  morally  pure.  The 
sickliness  has  been  a  more  constant  characteristic  of 
the  religion  he  founded  than  the  purity.  It  has 
entered  into  many  combinations  which  have  marred 
its  beauty,  not  even  shrinking  from  alliance  with  the 
obscenities  of  Siva-worship.2  But  no  religion  can 
afford  to  be  judged  by  all  the ,  phases  it  has  passed 
through  in  the  course  of  its  development.  Let  us 
therefore  take  Buddhism  at  its  best  and  think  of 
it  as  kindly  as  possible.  But  what  it  gives  is  not 
enough.  Men  need  more  than  a  quietive,  a  sooth- 
ing potion  ;  militant  virtues  as  well  as  meekness, 
gentleness,  and  resignation.  The  well-being  of 
the  world  demands  warriors  brave  in  the  battle 
against  evil,  not  monks  immured  in  cloisters,  and 
passing  their  lives  in  poverty  and  idleness,  wearing 
the  yellow  robe  of  a  mendicant  order. 

1   Vide  his  God  in  History ;  vol.  i.  p.  375. 

1  Vide  on  this  Burnouf's  Introduction^  pp.  480-488. 


LECTURE  II 

ZOROASTER:  DUALISM 

THE  date  of  Zoroaster  is  very  uncertain.  Con- 
jecture ranges  over  more  than  a  thousand  years, 
some  making  the  prophet  of  the  ancient  Persians 
a  contemporary  of  Abraham,  while  others  bring 
him  down  as  far  as  Hystaspes,  the  father  of 
Darius  I.,  i.e.  to  the  sixth  century  B.C.  The 
translator  of  the  Gathas,  in  the  Sacred  Books  of 
the  East,  Mr.  Mills,  thinks  that  these  poems,  the 
oldest  part  of  the  Avesta,  and  believed  to  be  from 
the  mind  if  not  from  the  hand  of  Zoroaster,  may 
possibly  have  been  composed  as  early  as  about 
1500  B.C.;  but  that  it  is  also  possible  to  place  them 
as  late  as  900  to  1200  B.C.1  Taking  the  latest  of 
these  dates,  the  ninth  century  before  the  Christian 
era,  as  the  period  in  which  Zoroaster,  or  as  he  is 
now  called,  Zarathustra,  made  his  appearance,  it 
results  that  the  man  who  is  known  to  all  the  world 
as  the  promulgator  of  the  dualistic  theory  preceded 
Buddha  by  three  hundred  years.  If  it  had  been 
necessary  to  be  guided  supremely  by  chronological 

1   Vide  the  Introduction,  p.  xxxvii. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  35 

considerations  he  should,  therefore,  have  come  first 
in  our  course.  But  for  our  purpose  it  does  not 
greatly  matter  which  of  the  two  religious  initiators 
has  the  honour  of  the  first  place.  The  movements 
they  inaugurated  are  independent  products  of  human 
thought  brooding  on  the  phenomena  of  life,  proceed- 
ing from  minds  differently  constituted  and  influenced 
by  diverse  environments. 

The  two  men,  however,  were  connected  by  very 
important  links.  They  were  kindred  in  race  and 
in  language,  and  they  had  a  common  religious  in- 
heritance. Indians  and  Persians  were  both  of  the 
Aryan  stock.  Their  fathers  lived  together  at  a 
far-back  time  in  the  region  north  of  Hindostan, 
whence  they  are  believed  to  have  migrated  in  two 
streams,  one  flowing  southwards  through  the  moun- 
tains towards  India  and  the  other  westward  towards 
Eastern  Persia.  Some  time  ago  the  theory  was 
held  that  the  separation  was  due  to  a  religious 
rupture.  The  hypothesis  was  built  on  the  facts 
that  certain  gods  of  the  Vedic  Pantheon  appear 
degraded  to  the  rank  of  demons  in  the  Persian 
Sacred  Book,  the  Avesta,  and  that  the  very  name 
for  a  god  in  the  Vedic  dialect  (devd)  is,  under  a 
slightly  altered  form  (daeva),  in  that  book  the 
name  for  a  demon.  It  seemed  a  not  improbable 
inference  that  the  Zoroastrian  movement  was  of 
the  nature  of  a  religious  revolt  which  threw  con- 
tempt on  the  common  deities  of  the  Indo-Iraniah 


36   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

family.1  Recent  scholars  reject  this  theory  and 
invert  the  relation  between  geographical  separation 
and  religious  divergence.  Mr.  Mills  expresses  the 
view  now  in  favour  in  these  terms :  *  No  sudden 
and  intentional  dismissal  of  the  ancient  gods  is  to 
be  accepted  with  Haug,  nor  any  religious  schism 
as  the  cause  of  the  migration  of  the  Indians  towards 
the  south.  The  process  was,  of  course,  the  reverse. 
The  migrating  tribes,  in  consequence  of  their  separa- 
tion from  their  brethren  in  Iran,  soon  became 
estranged  from  them,  and  their  most  favoured  gods 
fell  slowly  into  neglect,  if  not  disfavour.' 2 

Whatever  the  cause  of  religious  diversity  may 
have  been,  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  its 
existence.  The  religious  temper  revealed  in  the 
Gathas  is  widely  different  from  that  of  the  Vedic 
hymns,  and  still  more  from  that  of  Buddha.  The 
Vedic  religion,  as  we  saw,  is  a  kind  of  healthy, 
cheerful,  poetic  naturalism,  of  which  the  beautiful 
hymns  to  the  dawn  (Ushas)  may  be  taken  as  the 
typical  expression.  The  Vedic  worshipper  cherishes 
no  lofty  conception  of  the  highest  good,  nor  does 
he  brood  too  much  on  the  sorrows  of  life  and  on 
its  dark  end  in  death.  He  seeks  chiefly  material 
things  in  his  prayers,  enjoys  life  cheerily  while 
he  may,  and  thinks  of  death  as  a  sleep,  without 

1  So  Haug,  Die  Gdthas  des  Zarathustra.     On  his  view  vide  Dar- 
mesteter,  Onnuzd  et  Ahriman,  p.  261 /. 

2  Introduction  to  translation  of  the  Gathas,  p.  xxxvi. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  37 

fear  of  aught  beyond.  By  Buddha's  time  the 
Indian  mind  has  made  an  immense  advance 
in  moral  earnestness.  Life  now  means  much 
more  than  meat  and  drink ;  man's  chief  end 
is  not  to  be  happy,  but  to  be  good ;  sin  and 
sorrow,  the  very  occasional  themes  of  reflection  in 
the  Veda,  now  monopolise  attention.  But  the 
animal  vigour  and  healthy  energy  of  the  Vedic 
Indian  are  gone,  and  in  their  place  have  come 
quietism  and  despair.  The  religion  of  the  Gathas 
sympathises  with  the  moral  intensity  of  Buddha 
as  against  the  easy-going  ways  of  the  Vedic 
Indians;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  in  touch 
with  the  manliness  of  the  earlier  phase  of  Indian 
character,  as  opposed  to  the  sickly  life-weary 
spirit  of  the  later.  There  is  a  fervid  spirituality 
pervading  the  Githas  which  reminds  one  of  the 
Hebrew  Psalter.  The  moral  world,  not  the  material, 
is  what  the  seer  has  mainly  in  view.  Of  the  Pagan 
enjoyment  of  nature,  as  it  appeals  to  the  senses, 
there  is  little  trace.  We  find  there  nothing  corre- 
sponding to  the  Ushas-group  of  hymns.  Natural 
objects  are  seldom  referred  to,  and  never  alone,  or 
as  the  supreme  objects  of  interest.  When  the 
Good  Spirit  is  praised  as  the  Maker  of  heaven 
and  earth  and  all  things  therein  :  sun,  moon,  and 
stars,  clouds,  winds,  waters,  plants,  He  is  also 
praised  as  inspirer  of  good  thoughts.1  The  summum 

1  Mills'  translation  of  the  Gathas,  p.  113. 


38   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

bonum  for  the  poet  of  the  Gathas  is  the  Kingdom 
of  righteousness ;  fields,  crops,  flocks,  have  only  the 
second  place  in  his  thoughts. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  morality  of  the  Gathas, 
unlike  that  of  Buddhism,  is  virile,  militant.  It  is 
a  fight  for  the  good  against  evil  with  all  available 
weapons,  material  ones  not  excepted.  The  Zoro- 
astrian  has  no  idea  of  retiring  from  the  world  into 
a  monastery,  to  give  himself  up  to  meditation  on 
the  vanity  of  things,  and  to  that  extirpation  of 
desire  which  issues  in  Nirvana.  His  aim  is  to  do 
his  part  manfully  in  the  work  of  the  world,  tilling 
the  fields,  tending  the  flocks  ;  and  for  the  rest  to 
fight  to  the  death  men  of  evil  minds  and  evil  lives 
whenever  he  encounters  them. 

Compared  with  Vedism  the  religion  of  the  Gathas 
is  monotheistic,  in  tendency  at  least,  if  not  in  precisely 
formulated  creed ;  compared  with  Buddhism  it  is 
theistic,  believing  not  only  in  a  moral  order  of  the 
world,  but  in  a  moral  order  presided  over  by  a 
Divine  Sovereign.  And  the  natural  order  and  the 
moral  are  conceived  as  under  one  and  the  same 
divine  control.  The  Good  Spirit,  Ormuzd  (now 
written,  Ahuramazda\  is  at  once  maker  of  the 
physical  world,  the  source  of  piety,  and  the  fountain 
of  that  reverential  love  which  a  dutiful  son  cherishes 
towards  a  father.1  In  the  hymns  of  Zoroaster,  as 
in  the  Hebrew  Psalms,  the  glory  of  God  appears 

1  The  Gathas,  Yasna  xliv.  7. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  39 

alike  in  the  firmament  which  shovveth  His  handi- 
work and  in  the  moral  law  whose  statutes  make 
wise  the  simple. 

But  beside  the  Divine  Head  of  the  Kingdom  of 
righteousness  is  Another,  not  perhaps  of  equal 
power  and  godhead,  yet  a  kind  of  antigod,  head 
of  the  Kingdom  of  evil  and  maker  of  whatever  in 
the  world  is  hostile  to  goodness.  The  Zoroastrian 
idea  of  God  is  practically  dualistic,  if  not  in  the 
strict  sense  ditheistic.  Ahuramazda  has  to  submit 
to  a  rival,  Ahriman  (now  called  Angra-mainyii),  the 
evil-minded,  the  Demon  of  the  Lie.  This  dualism 
is  not  necessarily  a  pure  invention  of  Zoroaster's.  It 
may  be  the  development  of  an  unconscious  dualism 
latent  in  the  primitive  religion  of  the  united  Aryan 
family.1  Anthropologists  tell  us  that  dualism  in 
crude  forms  was  a  characteristic  of  all  primitive 
religions.  It  is  e.g.  a  conspicuous  feature  in  the 
religion  of  American  Redmen  from  north  to  south.2 
Tylor  gives  the  following  curious  example:  *  North 
American  tribes  have  personified  Nipinukhe  and 
Pipunukhe,  the  beings  who  bring  the  spring  (nipin) 
and  the  winter  (pipun) :  Nipinukhe  brings  the  heat 
and  birds  and  verdure,  Pipunukhe  ravages  with  his 
cold  winds,  his  ice  and  snow ;  one  comes  as  the 
other  goes,  and  between  them  they  divide  the 
world.'3  Traces  of  this  'early  omnipresent  dualistic 

1  Such  is  the  view  of  Darmesteter,  Ormuzd  et  Ahriman ,  p.  87. 
*  Vide  Lang's  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  47. 
3  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  i.  p.  300. 


40   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

philosophy'1  were  to  be  expected  in  the  original 
Aryan  religion  as  elsewhere ;  and  they  are  found 
in  the  Vedic  Hymns  as  well  as  in  the  Gathas. 

In  the  Veda,  however,  the  conflict  is  physical,  not 
ethical.  It  is  simply  a  vivid  mythological  repre- 
sentation of  the  phenomena  of  storms.  The  scene 
of  warfare  is  the  atmosphere,  and  the  war  is  between 
Indra,  the  god  of  light  and  of  rain,  and  Ahi,  the 
serpent  whose  tortuous  body,  the  clouds,  hides  the 
light,  or  Vritra,  the  bandit,  who  shuts  up  the  light 
and  the  waters  in  his  nebulous  cavern.2  It  has 
been  maintained  that  the  Persian  dualism  was 
originally  of  the  same  type,  and  ingenious  attempts 
have  been  made  to  discover  support  for  the  assertion 
in  the  Avesta.3  This  position,  whether  true  or  not, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  call  in  question.  The  fact  of 
importance  for  us  is  that  at  some  time  before  the 
Gathas  were  composed  the  physical  conflict  was 
transformed  into  a  moral  one,  and  the  scene  of 
warfare  passed  from  the  sky  to  the  earth,  and  the 
subject  of  contest  was  no  longer  the  light  and  the 
waters  of  heaven  but  the  human  soul.  This  is 
admitted  even  by  Darmesteter,  who  strenuously 
maintains  the  primitive  affinity  between  the  Indian 

1  Lang,  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  334 ;  also  vol.  ii. 
p.  4,  in  reference  to  the  crow  and  the  eagle,  the  'old  ones'  who 
made  the  world  according  to  an  Australian  myth.  'There  was 
continual  war  bet  wen  these  ornithomorphic  creators.  The  strife  was 
as  fierce  as  between  wolf  and  raven,  coyote  and  dog,  Ormuzd  and 
Ahriman.' 

a  Darmesteter,  p,  97.  *  Vide  Darmesteter's  work  above  cited. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  .      41 

and  the  Persian  forms  of  dualism.  At  what  precise 
time  the  transformation  took  place  it  may  be  im- 
possible to  determine,  as  also  to  what  agency  it 
was  due ;  enough  for  us  that  the  great  crisis  in 
the  Persian  religion  was  antecedent  to  the  Gathic 
period.  If  the  Gathas,  as  is  alleged,  contain 
survivals  of  the  older  type  of  dualism,  they  contain 
also  abundant  traces  of  the  transformed  ethical 
type.  Ahura  is  an  ethical  divinity  loving  righteous- 
ness and  hating  iniquity.  His  rival  also  is  an  ethical 
being,  but  of  a  sinister  order ;  a  lover  of  falsehood 
and  patron  of  wrong.  And  their  respective  subjects 
are  like-minded  with  the  divinities  they  serve.  And 
the  great  fact  for  the  sacred  poet  is  the  subjection 
of  the  world  to  the  dominion  of  two  antagonistic 
spirits,  with  the  corresponding  division  of  mankind 
into  two  great  classes,  those  who  obey  the  Good 
Spirit  and  those  who  are  subject  to  the  Evil  Spirit. 
If  these  lofty  conceptions  were  not  entirely  new 
creations,  but  transformations  from  lower  forms  of 
thought,  they  are  none  the  less  marvellous,  when 
we  consider  how  much  is  involved  in  the  change 
of  physical  deities  into  ethical  deities.  If  the 
transformation  was  the  work  of  Zoroaster,  single- 
handed,  he  deserves  to  be  ranked  among  the  great 
religious  initiators  of  our  race.  If  it  was  not  the 
work  of  one  man,  or  of  one  generation,  the  gradual- 
ness  of  the  process  does  not  make  the  result  less 
valuable.  It  was  a  great  day  for  ancient  Persia, 


42   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

and  for  the  world,  when  there  dawned  upon 
prophetic  minds  the  idea  of  a  Kingdom  of  the 
good  under  the  dominion  of  a  beneficent  Spirit 
who  required  of  men  the  culture  of  righteousness 
and  the  practice  of  mercy.  If  the  bright  vision 
had  its  dark  shadow  in  a  Kingdom  of  evil  presided 
over  by  a  rival  deity,  let  us  not  undervalue  it  on 
that  account.  The  Demon  of  the  Lie  only  serves 
as  a  foil  to  show  forth  by  contrast  the  virtues  of 
Ahura.  The  sombre  conception  of  an  antigod, 
however  crude  and  helpless  from  a  philosophical 
point  of  view,  at  least  evinces  the  resolute  de- 
termination of  the  Persian  sage  to  preserve  the 
character  of  the  good  Spirit  absolutely  free  from 
all  compromise  with  evil,  and  from  all  moral  con- 
tamination. To  accomplish  this  laudable  purpose  is 
the  raison  cFetre  of  the  evil  Spirit  in  the  Zoroastrian 
creed.  He  is  simply  the  negative  of  the  good  Spirit. 
He  grows  in  the  distinctness  of  his  attributes  and 
functions  in  proportion  as  the  importance  of  keeping 
the  divine  idea  pure  is  realised.  He  is  whatever  it 
is  desirable  that  the  truly  divine  should  not  be.  In 
the  primitive  time  before  the  separation,  he  was  not 
known  by  name ;  then  he  became  the  personifica- 
tion and  heir  of  the  demons  of  the  storm  ;  then  he 
assumed  more  definite  shape  as  the  antithesis  of 
Ahura,  and  his  character  was  outlined  in  malign  com- 
pleteness on  the  principles  of  analogy  and  contrast.1 

1  Vidt  Darmesteter,  Ormuzd  et  Ahriman,  chap.  vi. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  43 

The  thing  to  be  emphasised,  therefore,  in  the  first 
place,  in  the  religion  of  the  Gathas,  is  not  the 
dualism,  but  the  conception  contained  in  them  of 
the  Good  Spirit.  This  is  a  permanently  valuable 
contribution  to  the  evolution  of  religious  thought. 
The  character  ascribed  to  Ahura  is  pure  and  exalted. 
Among  the  epithets  employed  to  describe  him,  one 
specially  strikes  a  thoughtful  reader.  Ahura  is 
declared  to  be  '  the  Father  of  the  .toiling  good  mind,' 
and  piety  or  devotion  revealing  itself  in  good  deeds 
is  called  his  daughter.1  The  application  of  the  title 
*  Father'  to  the  Divine  Being  is  in  itself  worthy  of 
note,  and  from  the  connection  in  which  it  is  used  we 
get  a  glimpse  into  the  heart  of  the  Divine  Father. 
Observe  who  are  His  children.  They  are  the  men 
who  toil,  who  take  life  in  earnest,  who  with  resolute 
will  strive  to  do  the  work  that  lies  to  their  hand. 
And  what  is  the  nature  of  that  work  ?  It  is  such  as 
commends  itself  to  the 'good  mind/ work  in  which 
noble  souls  can  be  enthusiastic.  That  means  some- 
thing higher  than  tilling  the  fields  and  tending 
the  flocks,  though  these  useful  labours  are  not 
despised.  It  means  contributing  to  the  store  of 
righteousness  and  its  beneficent  fruits :  in  short, 
toiling  for  the  kingdom  of  goodness.  That  is  to 
say,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Ahura  are  those 
who,  in  the  language  of  Jesus,  'seek  first  the  king- 
dom of  God,'  and  heroically  devote  themselves  to 

1  The  Gathas,  Yasna  xlv.  4. 


44  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

its  service.  Through  the  children  we  know  the 
Father,  and  perceive  that  He  bears  some  resem- 
blance to  the  Father-God  Jesus  made  known  to 
His  disciples. 

Further  light  is  thrown  on  the  character  of  Ahura 
by  the  doctrine  of  the  Amschaspands.  The  name 
sounds  very  unattractive  to  our  ears,  but  the  thing  is 
simple.  The  doctrine  of  the  Amschaspands  is  simply 
the  doctrine  of  the  divine  attributes.  The  Amschas- 
pands are  personified  virtues  of  the  good  Spirit. 
They  are  six,  or,  counting  Ahura  Himself  as  one, 
seven.  Their  names  are  uncouth,  and  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  pronounce  them,  but  according  to  Dar- 
mesteter  they  signify  righteousness,  the  good  mind, 
sovereign  might,  piety  as  it  manifests  itself  in  the 
souls  of  believers,  health,  and  long  life.1  In  this  list 
there  seems  to  be  a  mixture  of  physical  and  moral 
properties.  Another  thing  still  more  notable  is,  the 
ascription  to  the  Divine  Being  of  what  belongs  to 
His  worshipper — practical  piety.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  piety  of  good  men  is  represented  as 
the  daughter  of  Ahura.  But  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Amschaspands  it  is  more  than  a  daughter,  even  an 
essential  ingredient  in  the  character  of  Ahura.  It 
almost  seems  as  if  the  Deity  of  the  ancient  Persians 
were  simply  the  immanent  spirit  of  the  holy  com- 
monwealth ;  He  in  it  and  it  in  Him,  and  all 
characteristic  properties  common  to  both.  This 

1  Darmesteter,  I.e.,  p.  42. 


:  DUALISM  4$ 

might  be  called  pantheism,  were  it  not  for  the  con- 
ception of  an  antigod,  which  is  not  consistent  with 
a  pantheistic  theory  of  the  universe.  Mr.  Mills 
suggests  the  designation,  '  Hagio-theism,'  to  which 
he  appends  the  explanatory  title,  'a  delineation  of 
God  in  the  holy  creation.' 1 

This  phrase  does  not  cover  the  whole  truth  about 
God  as  conceived  by  Zoroastrians.  Ahura  is  not 
merely  the  immanent  spirit  of  the  society  of  saints  ; 
He  is,  as  already  indicated,  the  Creator-spirit  of  the 
universe.  His  attribute  of  righteousness,  Ashay 
denotes  right  order  not  only  in  the  holy  common- 
wealth but  in  the  cosmos  at  large.  This  appears  in 
Yasna  xliv.,  which  contains  a  series  of  suggestive 
questions  addressed  to  Ahura  which,  in  an  interro- 
gative form,  set  forth  the  poet's  confession  of  faith 
concerning  the  relations  of  the  good  Spirit  to  the 
cosmic  order.  Two  of  these  questions  may  be  given 
by  way  of  sample. 


3.  '  This,  I  ask  thee,  O  Ahura  1  tell  me  aright : 

Who  by  generation  was  the  first  father  of  the  righteous 

order  (within  the  world)  ? 
Who  gave  the   (recurring)   sun  and  stars  their  (unde- 

viating)  way  ? 
Who  established  that  whereby  the   moon  waxes  and 

whereby  she  wanes,  save  thee  ? 
These  things,  O  great   Creator  1    would  I   know,   and 

others  likewise  still. 


1  The  Githas,  Introduction,  p.  xix. 


46   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

4.  *  This  I  ask  thee,  O  Ahura  !  tell  me  aright, 

Who  from  beneath  hath  sustained  the  earth   and  the 

clouds  above  that  they  do  not  fall  ? 
Who  made  the  waters  and  the  plants  ? 
Who  to  the  wind  has  yoked  on  the  storm-clouds,  the 

swift  and  fleetest  two  ? 
Who,   O  great  Creator !  is  the  inspirer  of  the   good 

thoughts  (within  our  souls)  P1 

The  cosmic  order  and  the  moral  order,  then,  are 
both  alike  ordained  by  Ahura.  The  courses  of  the 
stars;  the  alternations  of  light  and  darkness,  day  and 
night,  sleep  and  waking  hours  ;  the  daily  succession 
of  dawn,  noon  and  midnight  ;  the  flow  of  rivers,  the 
growth  of  corn  and  of  fruit-trees  ;  the  exhilarating 
sweep  of  purifying  breezes  ;  the  inspired  thoughts  of 
poets,  saints,  and  sages,  and  the  love  which  binds 
men  together  in  family  ties — these  all  have  their 
origin  in  Ahura's  wisdom  and  power. 

This  being  so,  what  room  and  need,  one  is  inclined 
to  ask,  in  this  universe,  fora  rival  divinity?  On  first 
thoughts  Angra-mainyu  may  seem  an  idle  invention  ; 
but  on  second  thoughts  we  are  forced  to  admit  that 
the  conception,  however  crude,  was  very  natural. 
Theories  always  have  their  ultimate  origin  in  ob- 
servation of  facts.  The  fact-basis  of  the  Persian 
dualism  was  the  observed  presence  in  the  world  of  two 
sorts  of  men,  diverse  in  spirit  and  in  conduct,  with 
incompatible  interests  and  ever  at  war.  They  are  the 

1  The  Gathas,  Yasna  xliv.     The  bracketed  clauses  in  this  and  othei 
quotations  are  explanatory  expressions  introduced  by  the  translator. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  47 

good-minded  and  the  evil-minded  respectively  ;  those 
who  love  truth  and  justice,  and  those  who  love  false- 
hood and  wrong.  The  existence  of  the  two  classes 
is  recognised  in  the  Gathas  in  these  quaint  terms, 
*  He  is  evil  who  is  the  best  one  to  the  evil,  and  he  is 
holy  who  is  friendly  to  the  righteous,  as  thou  didst 
fix  the  moral  laws,  O  Lord.'1  The  opposed  classes 
come  under  the  notice  of  the  poet  in  a  very  realistic, 
obtrusive,  and  unwelcome  manner  in  the  form  of  two 
peoples,  diverse  in  race,  language,  religion,  and  social 
condition.  The  good  are  represented  by  his  own 
people,  Aryans  in  race  and  language,  worshippers 
of  Ahura  and  tillers  of  the  soil  in  fertile  valleys  by 
river-courses  where  flocks  graze  and  grain  grows. 
The  evil  are  represented  by  obnoxious  neighbours 
of  the  Turanian  race,2  nomads,  worshippers  of 
demons,  too  near  the  Aryan  farmers  for  their  comfort, 
ever  ready  to  make  incursions  into  their  settlements 
and  carry  off  the  'joy-creating  kine'  from  the 
pleasant  peaceful  meadows.8 

Behold  an  elect  people,  an  Israel,  in  the  far  East, 
with  Philistines  on  every  side !  The  incessant  con- 
flict between  them  can  be  imagined.  Invasion  and 
rapine  on  the  part  of  the  demon-worshipping  nomads, 
resolute  defence  of  their  property  on  the  part  of 
Zoroastrians.  The  bitterness  of  the  increasing  strife 
is  reflected  in  the  sacred  poems  by  frequent  reference, 
and  by  the  terms  of  intense  dislike  applied  to  the 

1  Yasna  xlvi.  6.  2  Ibid.,  12.  8  Yasna  xlvii.  3. 


4§  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

foes  of  the  children  of  light.  In  the  conflict,  material, 
moral  and  religious  interests  and  motives  are  blended, 
and  all  three  are  surrounded  with  a  common  halo  of 
sacredness.  The  defence  of  agriculture  against  the 
assaults  of  pagan  nomads  becomes  a  holy  cause. 
Hence  the  personified  abstraction,  the  *  Soul  of  the 
Kine/  becomes  the  poetic  emblem,  not  only  of  the 
material  interests  of  the  worshippers  of  Ahura,  but 
also  of  the  spiritual.  It  is  the  'Soul  of  the  Kine/ 
representing  the  devout  tillers  of  the  land,  that  in  the 
hour  of  distress  raises  a  wailing  cry  to  Ahura  to  send 
a  strong  wise  man  to  teach  them  the  true  faith  and 
lead  them  against  their  foes.  Zoroaster  was  the 
answer  to  its  prayer.1 

No  wonder  that  in  these  circumstances  the  idea  of 
a  divine  antagonist  to  Ahura,  head  of  the  Kingdom 
of  darkness,  took  possession  of  the  mind  of  the  poet 
and  prophet  who  was  sent  in  answer  to  the  Soul 
of  the  Kine's  prayer.  For  one  of  his  intense  mystic 
temper,  Ahriman  would  seem  the  appropriate  divine 
embodiment  of  the  evil  spirit  active  in  the  dark 
Turanian  world.  One  can  imagine  how  it  might 
appear  to  him  as  a  great  revelation,  throwing  a  flood 
of  light  on  life's  mysteries,  to  proclaim  as  an  ultimate 
fact  the  existence  of  two  opposed  Spirits  dividing  the 
dominion  of  the  world  between  them.  This  accord- 
ingly the  hero,  sent  in  answer  to  the  distressed  cry 
of  the  Kine's  soul,  is  represented  as  doing  in  a 

1  Yasna  xxix. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  49 

solemn  address  to  an  assembled  multitude.  '  Hear 
ye  then  with  your  ears/  thus  he  begins, '  see  ye  the 
bright  flames  with  (the  eyes  of  the)  Better  Mind. 
It  is  for  a  decision  as  to  religions,  man  and  man, 
each  individually  for  himself.'1  Then  follows  the 
great  doctrine  of  dualism :  '  Thus  are  the  primeval 
spirits  who  as  a  pair  (combining  their  opposite 
strivings),  and  (yet  each)  independent  in  his  action, 
have  been  formed  (of  old).  (They  are)  a  better 
thing,  they  two,  and  a  worse,  as  to  thought,  as  to 
word,  and  as  to  deed.  And  between  these  two  let 
the  wisely  acting  choose  aright.  (Choose  ye)  not 
(as)  the  evil-doers.' 2 

That  this  doctrine  of  dualism  would  never  have 
been  heard  of  but  for  Turanian  invasions  of  Aryan 
settlements,  would  be  a  very  simple  supposition. 
Alas !  there  was  evil  within  the  holy  land  as  well 
as  without,  and  there  was  a  traditional  instinctive 
dualism  already  in  possession  of  the  popular  mind, 
and  both  these  sources  would  contribute  material 
for  reflective  thought  on  the  mystery  of  good  and 
evil  and  its  ultimate  explanation.  But  the  doctrine 
would  gain  sharpness  of  outline  from  the  existence 
of  a  Turanian  environment,  and  the  constant  con- 
flicts between  the  two  hostile  races  would  convert 
what  might  otherwise  have  been  a  mild  philosophic 
theorem  into  a  divine  message  coming  from  a  heart 
on  fire  with  a  sacred  enthusiasm  and  uttered  in 

1  Yasna  xxx.  2.  2  Yasna  xxx.  3. 

D 


So   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

words  of  prophetic  intensity.  Such  is  the  character 
of  the  Gatha  in  which  the  doctrine  is  proclaimed. 
The  temper  of  the  poet  is  not  philosophic  ;  it  is 
truculent,  Hebrew,  Puritan.  His  utterance  breathes 
at  once  the  lofty  spiritual  tone  and  the  vindictiveness 
of  certain  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Psalter.  He  con- 
templates with  satisfaction  the  time  when  vengeance 
shall  come  upon  the  wretches  who  worship  the 
Daevas.1  His  mind  is  dominated  by  the  same  broad 
antitheses  that  were  ever  present  to  the  thoughts  of 
Israel :  between  the  elect  people  and  the  Gentiles, 
between  light  and  darkness,  truth  and  falsehood  ; 
and  the  light  is  very  brilliant  and  the  darkness  very 
dark. 

Yet  the  attitude  of  the  Persian  prophet  towards 
the  outside  world  is  not  exclusively  hostile,  as  if 
those  who  had  given  themselves  to  the  service  of 
the  Evil  Spirit  were  incapable  of  change.  Conver- 
sion is  conceived  to  be  possible.  Conversions  are 
expected  even  from  the  Turanians.  With  clear  pro- 
phetic vision,  reminding  us  of  Hebrew  Psalmists,  the 
poet  of  the  Gathas  anticipates  a  time  when  '  from 
among  the  tribes  and  kith  of  the  Turanian  those 
shall  arise  who  further  on  the  settlements  of  Piety 
with  energy  and  zeal/  and  with  whom  Ahura  shall 
1  dwell  together  through  his  Good  Mind  (in  them), 
and  to  them  for  joyful  grace  deliver  His  commands.'2 
The  man  who  cherishes  this  hope  has  no  wish  to 

1  Yasna  xxx.  33.  a  Yasna  xlvi.  12. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  51 

enjoy  a  monopoly  of  Ahura's  blessing.  He  harbours 
in  his  heart  no  pride  either  of  election  or  of  race.  He 
is  conscious,  indeed,  of  possessing  in  the  true  faith 
a  boon  for  which  he  cannot  be  too  thankful.  But  he 
is  willing  to  share  the  boon  with  any  who  have  a 
mind  to  receive  it,  even  if  they  come  from  the  tents 
of  the  nomads.  Race  for  him  is  not  the  fundamental 
distinction  among  men,  as  is  caste  for  his  kindred  in 
India.  The  grand  radical  cleavage  in  his  view  is 
that  between  men  of  the  Good  Mind  and  men  of  the 
Evil  Mind,  and  the  fact  attests  the  sincerity  and 
depth  of  his  devotion  to  the  creed  he  proclaims. 

That  conversion  is  thought  to  be  possible,  even 
in  unlikely  quarters,  is  a  point  worth  noting  in  that 
creed.  Men,  we  see,  are  not  conceived  to  be  good 
or  evil  by  necessity  of  nature  and  irrevocably  ;  every 
man  by  an  insurmountable  fatality  a  child  of  Ahura, 
or  a  child  of  Ahura's  antagonist ;  no  change  from 
bad  to  good  possible,  either  through  self-effort  or 
through  gracious  influence  of  transcendent  powers. 
Evil  and  good  are  objects  of  choice,  and  the  man 
who  makes  a  wrong  choice  to-day  may  make  the 
better  choice  to-morrow.  Such  is  the  hopeful  creed 
of  Zoroaster. 

But  no  optimistic  expectations  aie  cherished. 
Present  experience  does  not  encourage  extravagant 
anticipations  or  universalistic  dreams.  Depressing 
facts  stare  one  in  the  face :  the  obstinacy  of  unbelief, 
the  rarity  of  conversions,  and  even  within  the  pale 


52   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  the  chosen  people  the  prevalence  of  grievous  evil : 
arrogance  among  those  of  high  degree,  lying  among 
the  people,  slothful  neglect  of  needful  toil;1  and, 
worst 'of  all,  evil  men  not  seen  and  believed  to  be 
the  sinners  that  they  are,  posing  and  passing  as 
children  of  light  when  they  are  in  truth  children 
of  darkness.2  To  these  moral  faults  have  to  be 
added  perplexing  social  evils  —  bad  men  prosper- 
ing, good  men  suffering  frustration  and  misfortune. 
Surveying  the  whole,  a  man  of  earnest  spirit  addicted 
to  reflection  is  more  likely  to  fall  a  prey  to  dark 
doubt  than  to  indulge  in  high  hopes  of  rapid  ex- 
tension and  steadily  increasing  sway  for  the  king- 
dom of  righteousness.  Traces  of  such  doubts  are 
not  wanting  in  the  Gathas.  The  poet  asks  such 
questions  as  these : — *  Wherefore  is  the  vile  man  not 
known  to  be  vile?'8  'When  shall  I  in  verity  dis- 
cern if  ye  indeed  have  power  over  aught,  O  Lord  ? '  * 
and  he  brings  under  Mazda's  notice  the  perplexing 
facts  of  his  own  experience — unable  to  attain  his  wish, 
his  flocks  reduced  in  number,  his  following  insignifi- 
cant— beseeching  him  to  behold  and  help  if  he  can.6 
Here  is  matter  enough  surely  for  musing !  Vile 
men,  e.g.  not  known  to  be  vile !  Why  cannot  men 
be  either  one  thing  or  another,  decidedly  good  or 
decidedly  evil  ?  Why  be  evil  and  at  the  same  time 
feign  goodness  ?  Alas  !  it  is  so  advantageous  some- 

1  Yasna  xxxiii.  4.  a  Ibid.  xliv.  12.  »  Ibid.  xliv.  H. 

*  Ibid,  xlviii.  9.  B  Ibid.  xlvi.  2. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  53 

times  to  have  the  name  of  being  good  ;  so  easy  to 
slide  intc  the  false  ways  of  hypocrisy,  especially  in 
times  of  exceptional  religious  enthusiasm.  When 
in  the  first  fervour  of  a  new  faith  believers  have 
all  things  in  common,  Ananiases  and  Sapphiras  are 
sure  to  arise.  Again,  has  Ahura  any  real  power? 
Ahura's  good-will  is  not  doubted,  and  that  is  well  ; 
for  when,  as  in  the  case  of  the  author  of  the  73rd 
Psalm,  doubt  arises  in  the  mind  whether  God  be 
indeed  good  even  to  the  pure  in  heart,  the  feet  are 
near  to  slipping.1  But  Ahura's  power  seems  open 
to  grave  question.  As  things  stand,  the  Evil  Spirit 
seems  to  be  in  the  ascendency.  Openly  wicked  men 
abound,  hypocrisy  is  rampant,  all  around  the  settle- 
ments of  the  worshippers  of  Mazda  is  the  dark  world 
of  demon- worship.  How  can  this  be,  if  Ahura's 
power  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  be 
equal  to  his  will?  The  personal  afflictions  of  which 
the  poet  complains  help,  of  course,  to  make  these 
doubts  and  perplexities  more  acute.  If  Ahura  be 
powerful,  why  does  he  not  protect  his  devoted 
servant  from  plunder,  and  give  him  the  success 
his  heart  desires  in  the  propagation  of  the  faith? 
Natural  questions  raising  abstruse  problems  out  of 
experiences  which  repeat  themselves  in  all  ages. 

The  poet  of  the  Gathas  seems  to  have  regarded 
the  conflict  between  good  and  evil  as  eternal.  The 
doctrine  of  dualism  enunciated  in  the  3Oth  Yasna 

1  Ps.  Ixxiii.  2. 


54   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

comes  in  as  an  answer  to  the  question  how  the 
primaeval  world  arose.1  According  to  that  doctrine, 
evil  always  has  been  and  always  will  be.  It  never 
had  a  beginning,  and  never  will  have  an  end.  There 
might  be  a  time  when  men  were  not,  but  there  never 
was  a  time  when  the  transcendent  Evil  Mind  was 
not.  The  two  antagonist  minds  are  both  repre- 
sented as  'primaeval.'2  And  the  prospect  for  the 
future  is  not  one  of  the  final  conversion  of  all  the 
evil-minded  to  goodness,  but  of  the  final  judgment 
of  the  inveterately  wicked.  *  The  swallowing  up  of 
sin  and  sorrow  in  ultimate  happiness/  according  to 
Mr.  Mills,  'belongs  to  a  later  period  It  is  not 
Gathic  Zarathustrianism.'3 

Of  'Zarathustrianism/  according  to  the  Gathas,  I 
have  endeavoured  in  the  preceding  statement  to  give 
a  brief  account.  It  remains  to  offer  some  observa- 
tions on  its  general  religious  value,  on  its  special 
contribution  to  the  theory  of  the  providential  order, 
and  on  the  influence  which  it  has  exerted  on  the 
subsequent  history  of  religious  thought. 

The  grand  merit  of  this  Persian  religion  is  its 
thoroughgoing  moral  earnestness,  its  Hebrew  pas- 
sion for  righteousness.  In  this  respect  Zoroaster  is 
not  unworthy  to  stand  beside  the  prophets  of  Israel. 
As  regards  this  fundamental  characteristic,  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Gathas,  we  are  assured,  remains  unaffected 
by  all  the  difficulties  of  syntax  which  make  trans- 
*  Yasna  xxviii.  12.  8  Ibid.  xxx.  3.  *  The  Gathas,  p.  26. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  55 

lation  a  hard  task  for  experts.1  The  poet  on  every 
page  appears  an  ardent  admirer  of  the  Good  Mind  ; 
a  passionate  lover  of  justice,  truth,  purity,  and  kind- 
ness. Mr.  Mills,  who  has  rendered  an  important 
service  by  translating  his  hymns  into  English,  pro- 
nounces an  opinion  on  their  value  which  may  well 
be  accepted  as  authoritative.  It  is  in  these  terms : 
'So  far  as  a  claim  to  a  high  position  among  the 
curiosities  of  ancient  moral  lore  is  concerned,  the 
reader  may  trust  himself  freely  to  the  impression  that 
he  has  before  him  an  anthology  which  was  probably 
composed  with  as  fervent  a  desire  to  benefit  the 
spiritual  and  moral  natures  of  those  to  whom  it  was 
addressed  as  any  which  the  world  had  yet  seen.'2 

The  Gathic  idea  of  God  is  the  child  of  this  intense 
ethical  temper.  The  wise,  good,  beneficent  Spirit 
called  Ahura-mazda  is  a  projection  of  the  good 
mind  which  animates  his  worshipper.  In  our  study 
of  Buddhism  we  found,  to  our  surprise,  that  his 
beautiful  ethical  ideal  did  not  suggest  to  Buddha 
the  conception  of  a  Deity  in  which  all  he  admired 
and  sought  to  be  was  perfectly  realised.  The  Persian 
prophet  did  not  make  this  mistake.  He  saw  in  the 
good  mind  of  man  the  immanence  and  operation  of 
an  absolute  Good  Mind.  Hence  his  theology  was 
as  pure  as  his  ethics.  It  was  the  bright  reflection  of 
a  good  conscience. 

1  Vide  an  article  by  Mr.  Mills  on  'Avestan  Difficulties'  in  The 
Critical  Review  for  July  1896.  2  The  Gathas,  p.  I. 


56   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

The  antigod  proclaimed  in  the  doctrine  of  dualism 
had  a  similar  origin.  It  was  a  device  to  protect  the 
character  of  Ahura  from  taint,  and  to  heighten  the 
brightness  of  its  light  by  contrast  with  darkness.  It 
may  be  a  failure  as  a  theory,  but  it  does  credit  to 
the  moral  sentiments  of  its  promulgator.  Had  he 
been  less  deeply  impressed  with  the  radical  irrecon- 
cilable distinction  between  good  and  evil,  he  might 
have  found  it  easier  to  believe  that  God  was  one  not 
two,  and  so  have  divided  with  Hebrew  prophets  the 
honour  of  giving  to  the  world  ethical  monotheism. 

Passing  now  to  the  doctrine  of  the  two  gods,  I 
remark  concerning  it,  in  the  first  place,  that  in 
promulgating  it  the  Persian  prophet  was  dealing 
seriously  with  a  radical  problem,  the  origin  of  evil. 
Of  moral  evil  I  mean,  for  it  does  not  appear  from 
the  Gathas  that  physical  evil  occupied  a  very  pro- 
minent place  in  their  author's  thoughts.  The  question 
of  questions  for  him  was,  Why  are  all  men  not  under 
law  to  the  good?  To  be  good  seemed  so  reason- 
able, so  natural,  to  one  whose  own  mind  was  good, 
to  love  truth,  justice,  and  mercy  so  easy,  that  he 
could  not  but  wonder  why  any  should  be  otherwise 
minded.  Evil  appeared  to  him  so  unnatural,  so 
unaccountable,  that  he  was  forced  to  seek  its  foun- 
tain-head not  in  man,  but  in  a  transcendent  causality 
even  within  the  region  of  the  divine.  A  more  serious 
view  of  the  matter  it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 

But  this   short  and   easy  solution  will   not  bear 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  57 

reflection.  Obvious  defects  at  once  suggest  them- 
selves. 

In  the  first  place,  the  theory  assigns  too  absolute 
significance  to  Evil  by  finding  its  origin  and  even 
its  permanent  home  in  the  sphere  of  the  divine.  It 
has  indeed  been  questioned  whether  Zoroaster  really 
did  this,  whether  his  so-called  dualism  was  dualistic 
in  principle ;  that  is,  whether  the  Evil  Spirit  was 
co-ordinate  with  the  Good  Spirit,  and  not  rather  sub- 
ordinate, even  his  creature.1  But  there  is  no  trace 
of  such  a  view  in  the  Gathas.  The  Good  Spirit,  as 
there  conceived,  could  not  create  a  spirit  evil  at  the 
moment  of  his  creation.  He  could  only  create  a 
spirit  who  was  at  first  good,  then  afterwards  fell  into 
evil — a  being,  i.e.  like  Milton's  Satan.  Such,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  history  of  Ahriman  as  given  in  the 
Gathas.  He  is  evil  from  the  beginning. 

This  idea  of  an  absolute  divine  Evil  is  self-cancel- 
ling. It  gives  to  Evil  equal  rights  with  the  Good. 
If  evil  and  good  be  alike  divine,  who  is  to  decide 
between  their  claims  ?  what  ground  is  there  for  pre- 
ferring either  to  the  other?  It  comes  to  be  a  matter 
of  liking,  one  man  choosing  the  Good  Spirit  for  his 
god,  another  the  Evil  Spirit,  neither  having  a  right 

1  The  second  of  these  alternatives  is  adopted  by  Harnack.  Vide  his 
essay  on  Manichseism  at  the  end  of  vol.  iii.  of  his  History  of  Dogma^ 
English  translation.  The  opposite  view  was  held  by  Hegel,  who 
regarded  the  dualism  of  the  Persian  religion  as  a  merit.  The  fault 
lay  not  in  introducing  the  antithesis  into  the  sphere  of  the  divine,  but 
in  not  providing  for  its  being  ultimately  overcome.  Vide  his  Philo- 
sophie  der  Gcschichte,  p.  182  (English  translation,  p.  186). 


58   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  call  in  question  the  other's  choice.  So  it  results 
that  a  dualism  created  by  the  over-anxious  assertion 
of  moral  distinctions  turns  into  its  opposite,  and  makes 
these  distinctions  purely  relative  and  subjective. 

The  account  given  of  man's  relation  to  this  divine 
dualism,  though  simple  and  satisfactory  at  first  sight, 
breaks  down  on  further  examination.  It  is  repre- 
sented as  a  matter  of  choice,  *  a  decision  as  to 
religions,  man  and  man,  each  individually  for  him- 
self.' The  man  of  evil  will,  accordingly,  chooses  the 
Evil  Spirit  for  his  Divinity.  But  whence  the  evil 
will  ?  Has  the  Evil  Spirit  waited  till  he  was  chosen 
before  beginning  to  exert  his  malign  influence,  or 
has  he  been  at  work  before  in  the  soul  of  his  wor- 
shipper predestining  and  disposing  him  to  the  bad 
preference?  On  the  latter  alternative,  where  is  the 
freedom  of  will  ?  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  will  be 
uncontrolled,  and  the  choice  perfectly  deliberate  and 
intelligent,  a  free  preference  of  the  worse  mind  by 
one  who  fully  knows  what  he  does,  does  this  not 
involve  a  state  of  pravity  which  is  final,  leaving  no 
room  for  change  from  the  worse  to  the  better  mind, 
a  sin  against  the  Good  Spirit  which  cannot  be 
repented  of  or  forgiven?  Yet  the  Gathic  creed 
recognises  the  possibility  of  conversion. 

The  origin  of  evil  cannot  be  explained  so  easily 
as  the  Persian  sage  imagined.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Twin  Spirits  raises  more  difficulties  than  it  solves. 
Better  leave  the  problem  alone  and  confess  that  the 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  59 

origin  of  evil  is  a  mystery.  Or,  if  you  will  have  a 
dualism,  why  not  one  such  as  Zoroaster's  personal 
history  might  have  suggested  to  him  ?  One  of  the 
Gathas  obscurely  hints  at  a  temptation  to  a  gross 
form  of  sensual  indulgence.1  How  near  the  tempted 
one  was  to  the  discovery  that  the  real  antithesis  was 
not  between  two  divine  Spirits  eternally  antagonistic, 
but  between  spirit  and  flesh  in  man ;  between  the 
law  in  the  mind  and  the  law  in  the  members !  This 
form  of  dualism  may  not,  any  more  than  the  other, 
go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  or  utter  the  final  word 
on  all  questions  relating  to  evil.  But  it  at  least 
points  to  a  real,  not  an  imaginary,  antagonism.  And 
by  placing  the  dualism  within  rather  than  without 
it  gets  rid  of  the  hard  line  of  separation  between 
good  men  and  bad  men,  drawn  by  a  theory  which 
lays  exclusive  emphasis  on  the  will.  In  the  light 
of  this  internal  dualism  we  see  that  men  are  not 
divisible  into  the  perfectly  good  and  the  perfectly 
evil,  but  that  all  men  are  both  good  and  evil  in 
varying  proportions.  There  is  a  law  in  the  members 
even  of  a  saint,  and  there  is  a  law  of  the  mind  con- 
senting to  good  even  in  the  most  abandoned  trans- 
gressor. The  fact  once  realised  tends  to  breed 
humility  and  sympathy.  The  good  man  becomes 
less  satisfied  with  himself,  and  more  inclined  to 
lenient  judgment  on  his  fellow  -  men.  What  an 
immense  advance  in  self-knowledge  is  revealed  by 

1  Yasna  li.  12. 


60   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

comparing  the  Gathas  with  the  seventh  chapter  of 
St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  what  a  con- 
trast between  the  hard  severe  tone  of  the  Persian 
hymns  and  the  benignant  kindly  accent  of  the 
words,  'Considering  thyself,  lest  thou  also  be 
tempted'!  Evil  is  not  to  be  explained  away  by 
smooth  phrases  ;  but  there  is  comfort  in  the  thought 
that  few  commit  that  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost 
which  consists  in  a  perfectly  deliberate  and  intelli- 
gent preference  of  evil  to  good ;  that  most  sins  are 
sins  of  ignorance  and  impulse  committed  by  men 
who  are  carried  headlong  by  desire  or  habit,  and 
deluded  by  a  show  of  good  in  things  evil. 

On  the  historic  influence  of  the  Persian  theory, 
only  a  few  sentences  can  be  added.  The  religion 
of  Zoroaster  is  almost  extinct,  its  only  adherents 
now  being  the  Parsees  in  India,  amounting  to  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand ;  an  insignificant 
number  compared  with  the  four  hundred  millions 
professing  Buddhism,  and  suggesting  the  thought 
that,  with  all  its  fair  promise,  this  ancient  faith  must 
have  had  some  inherent  defect  which  foredoomed 
it  to  failure.  It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  under 
the  providential  order  a  religion  fitted  to  render 
important  service  to  mankind  would  be  allowed  so 
completely  to  sink  out  of  sight.  The  subsequent 
career  of  Zoroastrianism,  while  it  was  the  religion 
of  the  Persian  people,  was  not  favourable  to  per- 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  61 

manent  influence  and  extensive  prevalence.  It 
developed  into  the  worship  of  fire,  and  of  the  Haoma 
plant,  and  of  spirits  innumerable,  of  diverse  grades, 
names,  and  functions,  and  into  elaborate  ceremonial 
for  the  purpose  of  securing  ritual  purity.  Dualism 
widened  out  into  a  species  of  refined  polytheism, 
and  the  ethical,  supreme  at  first,  became  lost  among 
the  de.tails  of  a  sacerdotal  system. 

The  direct  influence  of  Persian  dualism  has  been 
supposed  to  be  traceable  specially  in  two  quarters  : 
in  the  later  religious  ideas  of  the  Hebrews,  and  in 
the  Manichaean  religion  which  made  its  appearance 
in  the  third  century  of  our  era.  As  to  the  latter,  to 
speak  of  it  first,  the  main  interest  it  possesses  for  us 
is  the  hold  which  it  took  of  the  youthful  mind  of 
Augustine,  and  the  influence  which  through  him  it 
has  exercised  on  Christian  theology.  It  used  to  be 
regarded  as  certain  that  the  religion  of  Mani  was 
a  revival  of  Zoroastrianism  modified  by  Christianity. 
Recent  investigation,  however,  has  brought  about  a 
change  of  view ;  and  the  theory  now  in  favour  is  that 
the  basis  of  Manichaeism  is  to  be  sought  in  the  old 
Babylonian  religion ;  that  it  is  a  Semitic  growth 
with  a  mixture  of  Persian  and  Christian  elements. 
It  resembles  Zoroastrianism  in  so  far  as  it  also  teaches 
a  dualistic  theory  of  the  universe.  But  the  Mani- 
chaean dualism  is  not  ethical,  but  physical.  The 
great  antithesis  in  the  creed  of  Mani  is  that  between 
light  and  darkness,  not  as  emblems  of  good  and  evil, 


62   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

but  as  themselves  good  and  evil.  Religious  know- 
ledge consists  in  the  knowledge  of  nature  and  its 
elements,  and  redemption  in  a  physical  separation 
of  the  light  elements  from  the  darkness.  Human 
nature  belongs  mainly  to  the  realm  of  darkness, 
while  not  without  some  sparks  of  light.  The  ethics 
of  the  system  are  ascetic,  inculcating  abstinence  from 
all  that  belongs  to  the  dark  region,  such  as  fleshly 
desire.  However  repulsive  to  us  this  strange  re- 
ligious conglomerate  may  appear,  it  must  have  met 
the  mood  of  the  time,  for  it  spread  rapidly,  and 
became  one  of  the  great  religions  of  the  period.1 

Going  back  now  to  the  alleged  influence  of  Persian 
thought  on  the  religious  ideas  of  Israel  after  the 
period  of  the  Exile :  the  chief  instance  of  this  has 
been  found  in  the  conception  of  Satan.  Satan  has 
been  supposed  to  be  Ahriman  transferred  from  Persia 
to  Palestine.  It  is  a  plausible  but  by  no  means  in- 
disputable hypothesis.  The  question  is  mixed  up 
with  critical  theories  as  to  the  dates  of  those  Old 
Testament  books  in  which  Satan  occurs  as  a  personal 
designation.  These  are  Job,  Zechariah,  and  I  Chron- 
icles. If  these  books  were  written  during  or  after 
the  Exile,  the  Persian  origin  of  the  Satan  idea  would 
be  at  least  possible.  But  even  among  critics  of  the 
freest  type  there  is  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  their 
dates.  Thus  Renan  places  the  Book  of  Job  as  far 
back  as  the  eighth  century  B.C.  He  is  equally 
1  Vid*  the  article  by  Harnack  referred  to  on  p.  57,  note. 


ZOROASTER:   DUALISM  63 

decided  as  to  the  non-identity  of  Satan  with  Ahriman, 
giving  as  his  reason  that  Satan  does  nothing  except 
by  the  order  of  God,  that  he  is  simply  an  angel  of  a 
more  malign  character  than  the  rest;  sly,  and  inclined 
to  slander ;  by  no  means  to  be  identified  with  the 
genius  of  evil  existing  and  acting  independently.1 
More  significant,  perhaps,  is  the  function  assigned  to 
Satan  in  I  Chronicles.  He  there  performs  an  act 
which  in  an  earlier  book,  2  Samuel,  is  ascribed  to 
God.  In  Samuel  Jehovah  tempts  David  to  number 
the  people,  in  Chronicles  Jehovah's  place  is  taken  by 
Satan.2  It  is  a  ready  suggestion  that  the  Chronicler, 
writing  at  the  close  of  the  Persian  period  of  Jewish 
history,  made  the  alteration  under  the  influence  of 
Persian  ideas  as  to  what  it  was  fit  that  God  should 
do.  To  tempt  men  to  evil  was  not,  from  the  Persian 
point  of  view,  suitable  work  for  the  Good  Spirit;  such 
a  malign  function  properly  belonged  to  his  rival. 
That  familiarity  with  Persian  ways  of  thinking  gave 
rise  to  the  scruples  betrayed  in  the  alteration  made 
on  the  older  narrative  is  an  allowable  conjecture. 

However  they  are  to  be  explained,  the  scruples 
manifestly  existed,  and  this  is  the  thing  of  chief 
interest  for  us.  We  see  here,  if  not  Persian  dualism, 
at  all  events  a  species  of  dualism  originating  in  a 
feeling  kindred  to  that  which  gave  rise  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  'Twin  Spirits.1  The  Chronicler's 

1  Le  Livre  dejob,  p.  xxxix. 

'  Vide  2  Samuel  xxiv.  II,  and  cf.  I  Chronicles  xxi.  L 


64   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

feeling  obviously  was  that  to  tempt  is  an  evil  work 
which  may  not  be  ascribed  to  God.  The  feeling 
represents  an  advance  in  some  respects  on  the  older 
less  scrupulous  way  of  thinking,  which  would  have 
found  no  stumbling-block  in  the  robust  prophetic 
sentiment,  *  I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness  ;  I 
make  peace  and  create  evil.'1  The  scruple  of  the 
later  time  grew  out  of  an  intensified  sense  of  morat 
distinctions :  wherever  this  sense  becomes  acute, 
dualism  in  some  form  is  likely  to  reappear.  Hence 
we  are  not  done  with  dualism  even  yet.  Though 
the  Zoroastrian  religion  is  all  but  extinct,  itts  con- 
ception of  an  antigod  is  not  a  thing  of  the  distant 
past.  As  we  shall  see,  at  a  later  stage  in  our  course, 
it  is  being  revived  under  a  new  form  in  our  own 
time.2  There  is  much  in  the  world  to  tempt  one 
who  believes  in  a  good  God  to  take  up  with  the 
dualistic  hypothesis.  Yet  surely  it  cannot  be  the 
last  word.  The  broad  strong  creed  contained  in  the 
prophetic  oracle  above  cited  expresses,  not  only  the 
rough  belief  of  an  unrefined  moral  consciousness,  but 
also  the  ultimate  conviction  in  which  alone  the  heart 
can  find  rest.  Perhaps  the  prophet  had  the  Persian 
dualism  in  view  when  he  made  the  bold  declaration. 
While  respecting  the  moral  earnestness  in  which  that 
dualism  had  its  source,  he  deemed  it,  we  may  sup- 
pose, only  a  half  truth,  and  therefore  supplied  the 
needed  correction  by  representing  God  as  the  creator 

1  Isaiah  zlv.  7.  '  Vide  Lecture  X. 


ZOROASTER:  DUALISM  65 

both  of  light  and  of  darkness.  However  hard  to 
hold,  this  is  the  true  creed.  The  dominion  of  the 
world  cannot  be  divided  between  two,  whether  we 
call  them  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  Jehovah  and  Satan, 
God  and  Devil,  or  by  any  other  names.  God  must 
be  God  over  all,  and  His  providence  must  be  all- 
embracing. 


LECTURE    III 

THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS  :    NEMESIS 

STUDENTS  of  the  religions  of  mankind  insist  on  the 
importance  of  distinguishing  between  the  mythical 
and  the  truly  religious  elements  in  belief.  In  all 
stages  of  culture,  among  the  lowest  and  most  back- 
ward peoples  as  among  the  most  advanced,  the  two 
elements  are  found  to  co-exist.  They  are  of  very 
different  value.  In  the  mythical  element  the  absurd 
and  the  immoral  abound.  The  religious  element,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  a  comparatively  pure  and  rational 
sentiment,  everywhere  essentially  the  same  ;  faith  in 
a  Power  working  for  righteousness,  and  more  or  less 
benign  in  its  dealings  with  the  children  of  men.1 

In  no  case  is  it  more  necessary  to  bear  this  dis- 
tinction in  mind  than  in  dealing  with  the  religion 
of  Greece.  The  mythology  of  that  religion  earned 
for  itself  a  bad  reputation  by  those  grotesque  and 
licentious  features  on  which  the  early  Christian 
Fathers  were  wont  to  dilate  in  an  apologetic  interest. 
The  tendency  of  apologists  generally  has  been  to 
think  of  these  features  of  ancient  Pagan  religions  too 

1   Vide  Lang,  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  328,  329. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       67 

exclusively,  in  forming  an  estimate  of  their  worth. 
Hence  the  fact  complained  of  by  Professor  Max 
Miiller,  that  while  we  have  endless  books  on  the 
mythology  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  we  have 
comparatively  few  on  their  religion,  that  is,  their 
belief  in  a  wise,  powerful  Eternal  Ruler  of  the  world.1 
Since  that  distinguished  scholar  made  his  complaint, 
thoughtful  students  of  Greek  literature  have  become 
more  alive  to  the  fact  that  such  a  belief  in  a  Divine 
Moral  Order  had  a  large  place  in  the  minds  of  the 
wisest  Greek  thinkers,  and  really  constituted  their 
proper  religious  creed.  The  modern  spirit  inclines 
to  give  that  belief  the  position  of  prominence  in  its 
estimate  of  Hellenic  religion,  and  to  regard  the 
mythology  as  a  thing  which  grew  out  of  a  primitive 
nature-worship,  for  which  the  Greeks  of  a  later  age 
were  not  responsible,  and  towards  which  they 
assumed  varying  attitudes  of  reverent  receptivity 
respectful  tolerance,  or  sceptical  contempt. 

Mythology  and  religion,  in  the  sense  explained,  are 
intimately  combined  in  Greek  Tragedy.  The  myths 
and  legendary  tales  of  the  heroic  age  are  the  warp, 
and  the  ethical  and  religious  sentiments  of  the  poet 
are  the  woof,  of  the  immortal  dramas  of  -^Eschylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides.  The  warp  is  essentially 
the  same  in  all  three,  yet  the  colour  varies  more  or 
less  in  each  of  them.  The  individuality  of  each  of 
the  great  dramatists  comes  out  in  his  manner  of 

1  Vide  Science  of  Language,  vol.  ii.  p.  413. 


68   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

reproducing  the  tradition,  as  also  in  the  attitude  he 
assumes  towards  the  whole  stock  of  myths  and 
legends  handed  down  from  antiquity.  For  yEschylus 
they  are  truth  to  be  accepted  with  reverent  faith ; 
for  Sophocles  they  are  fiction  to  be  received  and 
used  with  artistic  decorum ;  for  Euripides  they  are 
ridiculous  tales  to  be  regarded  with  sceptical  scorn 
and  handled  with  critical  freedom.  The  woof  varies 
as  well  as  the  warp.  When  we  compare  the  three 
tragedians  with  each  other,  we  can  trace  a  certain 
advance  in  their  respective  conceptions  of  the  moral 
order  of  the  world.  This  was  to  be  expected  in  the 
case  of  men  possessing  exceptionally  high  intel- 
lectual and  moral  endowments.  None  of  them  was 
likely  to  be  a  simple  echo  of  his  predecessor.  Every 
one  of  them,  ^Eschylus  not  excepted,  was  likely  to 
have  some  new  thought  to  utter  on  the  high  themes 
which  occupied  their  minds  in  common.  Develop- 
ment in  all  respects,  indeed,  may  be  looked  for ; 
in  dramatic  art,  in  the  personal  attitude  towards 
mythology,  and  in  the  individual  views  concerning 
the  providential  order. 

Progression  has  been  recognised  in  the  two  first 
of  these  three  departments.  As  to  the  artistic  side 
I  cannot  go  into  details,  but  must  content  myself 
with  a  brief  general  indication,  based  on  the  in- 
structive statement  of  Mr.  Symonds  in  his  Stu-iies 
of  the  Greek  Poets.  Mr,  Symonds  says :  '  The  law 
of  inevitable  progression  in  art  from  the  severe  and 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       69 

animated  embodiment  of  an  idea  to  the  conscious 
elaboration  of  merely  aesthetic  motives  and  brilliant 
episodes,  has  hitherto  been  neglected  by  the  critics 
and  historians  of  poetry.  They  do  not  observe 
that  the  first  impulse  in  a  people  towards  creative- 
ness  is  some  deep  and  serious  emotion,  some  fixed 
point  of  religious  enthusiasm  or  national  pride.  To 
give  adequate  form  to  this  taxes  the  energies  of  the 
first  generation  of  artists,  and  raises  their  poetic 
faculty,  by  the  admixture  of  prophetic  inspiration,  to 
the  highest  pitch.  After  the  original  passion  for  the 
ideas  to  be  embodied  in  art  has  somewhat  subsided, 
but  before  the  glow  and  fire  of  enthusiasm  have 
faded  out,  there  comes  a  second  period,  when  art  is 
studied  more  for  art's  sake,  but  when  the  generative 
potency  of  the  early  poets  is  by  no  means  exhausted.' 
The  author  goes  on  to  indicate  how,  during  these 
two  stages,  the  mine  of  available  ideas  is  worked 
out,  and  the  national  taste  educated,  so  that  for  the 
third  generation  of  artists  the  alternatives  left  are 
either  to  reproduce  their  models — a  task  impossible 
for  genius — or  to  seek  novelty  at  the  risk  of  impair- 
ing the  strength  or  the  beauty  which  has  become 
stereotyped.  '  Less  deeply  interested  in  the  great 
ideas  by  which  they  have  been  educated,  and  of 
which  they  are  in  no  sense  the  creators,  incapable  of 
competing  on  the  old  ground  with  their  elders,  they 
are  obliged  to  go  afield  for  striking  situations,  to 
force  sentiment  and  pathos,  to  subordinate  the 


70   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

harmony  of  the  whole  to  the  melody  of  the  parts, 
to  sink  the  prophet  in  the  poet,  the  hierophant  in 
the  charmer.'  ^Eschylus  represents  the  first  stage 
in  this  progression,  Sophocles  the  second,  Euripides 
trie  third.  Mr.  Symonds  compares  the  three  poets 
to  the  three  styles  of  Gothic  architecture,  ^Eschylus 
representing  the  rugged  Norman,  Sophocles  the 
refined  pointed  style,  Euripides  the  florid  flamboyant 
manner.  '  ^Eschylus/  he  says,  *  aimed  at  durability 
of  structure,  at  singleness  and  grandeur  of  effect. 
Sophocles  added  the  utmost  elegance  and  finish. 
Euripides  neglected  force  of  construction  and  unity 
of  design  for  ornament  and  brilliancy  of  effect.'1 

The  advance  in  the  second  respect,  i.e.  in  the 
attitude  assumed  towards  the  legends  which  formed 
the  stock-in-trade  of  dramatic  art,  from  the  reverence 
of  ^Eschylus  through  the  artistic  reserve  of  Sophocles 
to  the  outspoken  rationalism  of  Euripides,  has  been 
duly  recognised  by  such  recent  writers  as  Verrall 
and  Haigh.2  But  the  third  aspect  of  the  onward 
movement — for  our  purpose  the  most  important  of  all 
— that  exhibited  in  the  respective  conceptions  of  the 
three  great  tragedians  on  the  subject  of  the  moral 
order  and  relative  phenomena,  has  not  received  as 
yet,  at  least  so  far  as  I  know,  the  full  acknowledg- 
ment and  distinct  formulation  to  which  it  is  entitled. 

1  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  1st  series,  pp.  206-208. 
*  Vide  Verrall's  Euripides  the  Rationalist  (1895),  and  Haigh 's  Th* 
Tragic  Drama  of  the  Creeks  (1896), 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       71 

That  development  here  also  can  be  verified,  seems 
to  me  beyond  doubt.  It  is  just  such  a  progression 
as  might  have  been  expected.  When  stated,  the  law 
of  advance  is  so  simple  and  natural  as  to  appear 
self-evident,  and  scarcely  in  need  of  verification. 

The  law  in  question  is  as  follows  : — 

^Eschylus,  coming  first,  believes  firmly  in  the 
unimpeachable  retributive  justice  of  Providence. 
His  doctrine  is  kindred  to  that  of  Eliphaz  in  Job : 
'  Remember,  I  pray  thee,  who  ever  perished  being 
innocent?  or  where  were  the  righteous  cut  off?'1 
Sophocles,  coming  next,  while  not  questioning  the 
general  truth  of  the  ^Eschylean  doctrine  of  Nemesis, 
sees  clearly  and  states  frankly  that  there  are  ex- 
ceptions both  ways ;  bad  men  prospering,  good 
men  suffering  grievous  misfortune.  Antigone,  QEdi- 
pus,  Philoctetes  are  some  of  the  conspicuous 
examples  of  afflicted  innocence.  ;Such  facts  the 
poet,  while  constrained  to  acknowledge  their  exist- 
ence, does  not  profess  to  understand ;  he  simply 
reckons  them  among  the  mysteries  of  human  life. 
Euripides  goes  one  step  further  ;  the  suffering  of 
innocence  is  for  him  as  well  as  for  Sophocles  a  fact, 
but  not  altogether  a  mysterious  one :  he  perceives 
a  ray  of  light  amid  the  darkness.  He  knows  and 
notes  that  there  is  not  merely  such  a  thing  as 
innocence  involuntarily  suffering  unmerited  evil,  but 
also  such  a  thing  as  innocence  voluntarily  enduring 
1  Job  iv.  7. 


72   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

evil,  at  the  prompting  of  love  and  in  devotion  to  a 
good  cause.  Such  self-sacrifice  did  not  appear  to 
him,  I  think,  a  violation  of  the  moral  order,  but 
rather  the  manifestation  of  that  order  under  a  new 
form.  This  law  of  progress  in  the  reading  of  moral 
phenomena,  kept  well  in  view,  will  help  us  to  ap- 
preciate better  the  distinctive  lessons  to  be  learnt 
from  the  Greek  Tragedians  concerning  the  provi- 
dential order  of  the  world. 

A  few  general  statements  of  fact  may  here  be 
premised. 

The  story  of  the  rise,  progress,  and  uses  of  the 
Greek  Tragic  Drama  cannot  here  be  told.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  drama  served  the  same  purpose 
for  the  Greeks  that  the  sermon  does  for  a  Christian 
community.  It  did  this  and  more.  The  statement 
of  Professor  Blackie  is  not  far  from  the  truth,  that 
'the  lyrical  tragedy  of  the  Greeks  presents,  in  a 
combination  elsewhere  unexampled,  the  best  ele- 
ments of  our  serious  drama,  our  opera,  our  oratorio, 
our  public  worship,  and  our  festal  recreations.'1 
The  drama  was  for  the  Greek  the  chief  medium 
of  ethical  and  religious  instruction.  The  three 
most  celebrated  dramatic  preachers  were  those 
already  named:  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides. 
jEschylus  was  born  525  B.C.,  Sophocles  about  497 
B.C.,  and  Euripides  480  B.C.  ^Eschylus  took  part 
in  the  war  against  the  Persians  and  made  the  defeat 

Translation  of  /Eschylus,  vol.  i.  Introduction,  p.  xlviii. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS  :  NEMESIS       73 

of  the  mighty  foe  by  his  countrymen  the  subject 
of  one  of  his  tragedies.  He  and  his  brother-poets 
wrote  many  tragic  dramas,  only  a  few  of  which  have 
been  preserved  ;  of  ^Eschylus  seven,  of  Sophocles 
seven,  and  of  Euripides  eighteen.  Their  themes 
were  taken  for  the  most  part  from  the  traditional 
tales  of  the  ggds  and  the  legendary  history  of  the 
heroic  age  of  Greece.  Homer  was  their  Bible. 
^Eschylus  is  reported  to  have  said  that  his  tragedies 
were  only  slices  cut  from  the  great  banquet  of 
Homeric  dainties.  The  siege  of  Troy  with  relative 
incidents  supplied  abundant  topics  for  the  dramatic 
preacher  who,  with  the  true  preacher's  instinct,  was 
ever  careful  to  point  the  moral  lesson  suggested  by 
his  story.  Among  the  legends  which  offered  ample 
opportunity  for  moralising  were  those  relating  to 
the  fortunes  of  Agamemnon,  the  leader  of  the 
Greek  host  against  Troy,  and  of  his  family.  The 
main  events  are:  the  sacrifice  of  the  daughter  of 
Agamemnon,  Iphigenia,  at  Aulis,  to  obtain  a  fair 
wind  to  carry  the  fleet  to  Troy;  the  murder  of 
Agamemnon  on  his  return  home  from  the  ten 
years'  siege,  by  his  own  wife,  Clytemnestra  ;  and  the 
murder  of  her  in  turn  by  her  son  Orestes.  ^Eschylus 
and  Euripides  both  handle  these  themes  with  great 
power,  though  with  characteristic  differences  in  the 
mode  of  treatment.  Three  of  the  extant  plays  of 
^Eschylus  are  devoted  to  them :  the  Agamemnony 
the  Libation- Bearers,  and  the  Eumenides^  i.e.  the 


74   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Furies  who  haunted  Orestes  when  he  had  killed  his 
mother.  The  first  and  the  last  of  the  three  show  the 
genius  of  the  poet  at  its  best.  With  them  is  worthy 
to  be  associated  the  Prometheus  Bound \  whose  theme 
is  unique,  and  whose  story,  as  we  shall  see,  presents 
a  curious  problem  with  reference  to  the  doctrine  of 
^Eschylus  concerning  the  moral  order,  which  I  now 
proceed  to  illustrate. 

The  message  of  ^Eschylus,  broadly  stated,  is  that 
the  gods  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  works, 
that  men  reap  in  lot  what  they  sow  in  conduct.  In 
teaching  this  doctrine  he  was  by  no  means  merely 
echoing  traditional  opinion.  The  older  view  was 
that  quaintly  expressed  by  Herodotus,  that  Deity 
is  envious;1  that  is  to  say,  that  the  gods  inflict 
misery  on  men  not  only  because  they  do  wrong,  but 
also  because  they  are  more  prosperous  than  befits 
the  human  state.  In  a  passage  in  the  Agamemnon 
^Eschylus  refers  to  this  ancient  belief  as  still  current, 
intimates  his  inability  to  acquiesce  in  it,  and,  though 
conscious  of  standing  alone,2  boldly  declares  his 
conviction  that 

1  Whoso  is  just,  though  his  wealth  like  a  river 
Flow  down,  shall  be  scathless  :  his  house  shall  rejoice 
In  an  offspring  of  beauty  for  ever.'3 

1  Historic  i.  32.     To  fletov  v£u>  <f>0ovep6v. 

8  Nagelsbach,  in  Nachhomerische  Theologie,  p.  50,  leads  proof  that 
^Eschylua  really  stood  alone  in  his  view— that  he  was,  as  he  says, 
povtxppuv. 

'  B kc kit's  translation  of  ^schylus,  vol.  i.  p.  47. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       75 

Thus,  while,  by  comparison  with  Sophocles  and 
still  more  with  Euripides,  representing  an  antiquated 
theory,  Jischylus  was  himself  an  innovator,  inaugu- 
rating a  new  type  of  thought  on  the  subject  of  the 
moral  order.  His  contribution  was  an  important 
step  onwards  in  the  evolution  of  providential  theory. 
It  aimed  at  the  moralisation  of  belief  concerning 
the  divine  dealings  with  men,  by  lifting  these  out 
of  the  low  region  of  caprice  or  jealous  passion 
into  the  serener  atmosphere  of  fixed  ethical  prin- 
ciple. It  was  a  doctrine  worth  preaching  with  all 
the  enthusiasm  that  a  new  and  noble  faith  can 
inspire,  and  ^Eschylus  lost  no  opportunity  of  illus- 
trating and  enforcing  it. 

The  Persians  is  the  only  piece  among  the  remains 
of  the  ancient  drama  which  draws  its  material  from 
the  history  instead  of  the  mythology  of  Greece. 
^Eschylus  may  have  been  tempted  to  make  it  an 
exception  because  of  the  splendid  opportunity  it 
afforded  of  illustrating  his  doctrine  of  retribution. 
This  drama  is  a  sermon  on  the  ruin  that  overtakes 
pride,  as  exemplified  in  the  disastrous  failure  of  the 
ambitious  attempt  of  the  Persian  despot  to  subdue 
Greece.  The  mood  of  the  preacher  is  that  of  a 
Hebrew  prophet  announcing  the  doom  of  Babylon 
or  Tyre,  or  of  Carlyle  when  he  wrote  The  French 
Revolution.  '  To  him,  as  to  the  old  Hebrew  prophets, 
history  is  a  revelation  of  the  will  of  providence ;  and 
the  ruin  of  armies,  and  the  overthrow  of  nations,  are 


76  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

but  examples  of  the  handiwork  of  God.'1  The  gist 
of  the  whole  dramatic  spectacle  is  given  in  these 
few  lines  : 

*  For  wanton  pride  from  blossom  grows  to  fruit, 
The  full  corn  in  the  ear,  of  utter  woe, 

And  reaps  a  tear-fraught  harvest ' ; 

or  still  more  tersely  in  the  brief  sentence : 

*  Zeus  is  the  avenger  of  o'er-lofty  thoughts, 
A  terrible  controller.'2 

The  sway  of  the  principle  of  Nemesis  in  individual 
experience  is  pithily  proclaimed  by  ^Eschylus  in  these 
sentences : 

*  Whatsoever  evil  men  do,  not  less  shall  they  suffer.'1 

*  Doubt  it  not,  the  evil-doer  must  suffer.14 

*  Justice  from  her  watchful  station 
With  a  sure-winged  visitation 
Swoops,  and  some  in  blazing  noon 
She  for  doom  doth  mark, 

Some  in  lingering  eve,  and  some 
In  the  deedless  dark.'6 

These  oracles  show  the  punitive  aspect  of  the 
moral  order,  which  is  the  thing  chiefly  insisted  on  by 
the  poet.  But  he  is  not  unmindful  of  the  action  of 
Providence  in  rewarding  the  good,  however  humble 
their  station  :  witness  this  cheering  reflection : 

4  Haigh,  The  Tragic  Drama  of  the  Greeks,  p.  104. 

a  The  /'crstans,  816-819  and  823-824  ;  Plumptre's  translation. 

'  Oi5  TO??  /ca/fo?s  7-6  Spa^a  rov  irddovs  ir\tov,Agam.  533 ( vide  Sales Att.\ 

4  Apcuraprt  drjirov  K.a.1  vaQf.lv  60e{\ercu,  Fabula 

9  Chotphora,  61-65;  Blackie's  translation. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMfcSf  £       tf 

'  Justice  shineth  bright, 

In  dwellings  that  are  dark  and  dim  with  smoke, 
And  honours  life  law-ruled.'1 

To  call  in  question  or  deny  the  doctrine  set  forth 
in  these  and  similar  utterances  ^schylus  accounts 
an  impiety.  Hear  his  emphatic  protest  in  the 
Agamemnon : 

'  One  there  was  who  said, 
The  gods  deign  not  to  care  for  mortal  men 
By  whom  the  grace  of  things  inviolable 
Is  trampled  under  foot. 

No  fear  of  God  had  he.'8 

The  devout  poet  not  only  believes  in  the  punish- 
ment of  sin,  but  that  the  penalty  may  come  in  a 
later  generation : 

*  I  tell  the  ancient  tale 

Of  sin  that  brought  swift  doom. 
Till  the  third  age  it  waits.'3 

Laius  sins,  GEdipus  his  son  sins  and  suffers, 
Eteocles  and  Polyneikes  his  grandsons  fall  by  each 
other's  hands. 

He  believes  that  there  is  heredity  of  moral  evil, 
sin  propagating  itself,  and  entailing  a  curse  upon 

offspring : 

*  But  recklessness  of  old 

Is  wont  to  breed  another  recklessness, 
Sporting  its  youth  in  human  miseries, 
Or  now,  or  then,  whene'er  the  fixed  hour  comes.'4 

1  Agamemnon,  747-749  ;  Plumptre's  translation. 
*  Ibid.,  360-364;  Plumptre's  translation. 

3  The  Seven  against  7hebes>  739-741  ;  Plumptre's  translation. 

4  Agamemnon,  737-740 ;  Plumptre's  translation. 


78  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

But  he  also  believes  that  there  is  mercy  as  well  as 
severity  in  the  visitations  of  divine  justice.  Suffering 
is  disciplinary  as  well  as  punitive,  when  rightly 
taken : 

*  For  Jove  doth  teach  men  wisdom,  sternly  wins 
To  virtue  by  the  tutoring  of  their  sins. 
Yea  !  drops  of  torturing  recollection  chill 
The  sleeper's  heart ;  'gainst  man's  rebellious  will 

Jove  works  the  wise  remorse  : 
Dread  Powers  !  on  awful  seats  enthroned,  compel 

Our  hearts  with  gracious  force.' l 

Wholesome  doctrine  all  this ;  but  are  there  no 
exceptions,  no  cases  of  good  men  suffering  and  bad 
men  thriving  ?  What  ^schylus  may  have  taught  on 
this  question  in  his  many  lost  tragedies  we  cannot 
guess,  but  his  extant  plays  contain  one  instance  of 
a  good  man  or  demigod  suffering,  without,  as  we 
should  judge,  any  sufficient  reason.  I  refer  to  the 
Titan  Prometheus,  chained  to  a  rock  for  thousands 
of  years  because  he  had  been  a  benefactor  to  men. 
What  view  /Eschylus  took  of  the  remarkable  legend : 
whether  he  regarded  Prometheus  as  a  real  offender 
suffering  just  punishment,  or  as  an  exception  to  his 
own  rule,  we  have  not  the  means  of  deciding,  as  the 
Prometheus  Bound  is  the  second  of  three  connected 
dramas  on  the  same  theme,  and  is  the  only  part 
of  the  trilogy  that  has  been  preserved.  Guesses 
have  been  made  at  the  nature  of  the  solution 
which  would  be  given  in  the  concluding  part,  the 

1  Agamemnony  170-177;  Blackie's  translation. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       79 

Prometheus  Unbound.  Mr.  Symonds  holds  that 
^Eschylus  regarded  the  hero  as  a  real  transgressor, 
that  the  vilification  of  Jove  as  a  despot  in  the 
Prometheus  Bound  is  to  be  understood  in  a  dramatic 
sense,  and  that  in  the  concluding  play  the  Titan 
was  shown  to  be  really  and  gravely  in  the  wrong ; 
guilty  of  obstinacy  eminently  tragic,  as  display- 
ing at  once  culpable  aberration  and  at  the 
same  time  the  aberration  of  a  sublime  character.1 
This  is  a  legitimate  supposition,  but  not  the  only 
one  possible.  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  in  the  final 
piece  the  poet  represented  Jove  as  adopting  an 
apologetic  rather  than  a  self-justifying  tone,  as  in 
reference  to  the  destroying  flood  we  find  the  sacred 
writer  putting  into  Jehovah's  mouth  the  words,  *  I 
will  not  again  curse  the  ground  any  more  for  man's 
sake,' 2  and  admitting  that  he  had  treated  the  Titan 
with  undue  severity  ?  Or,  granting  that  to  the  end 
the  poet  held  the  hero  to  be  guilty,  and  tried  to  show 
how,  does  it  follow  that,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Symonds, 
1  if  we  possessed  the  trilogy  entire  we  should  see  that 
Prometheus  had  been  really  and  grandly  guilty'?3 
Might  we  not  rather  have  seen  the  poet  trying  hard 
to  prove  that,  and  failing?  What  if  it  was  a  case 
not  capable  of  solution  on  the  principle  of  just 
retribution?  a  case,  like  that  of  Job,  of  too  deep 

1  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  2nd  series,  pp.  173-188. 

*  Genesis  viii.  21. 

•  Syraonds'  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  2nd  series,  p.  188. 


&>  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

import  for  the  Eliphaz  theory  to  cope  with,  and 
coming  under  some  other,  deeper  law  ? 

There  is  a  law,  known  to  us,  under  which  the 
Titan's  experience  might  with  some  measure  of 
reason  be  classified,  the  law,  viz.  according  to  which 
the  world's  greatest  benefactors  are  the  greatest 
sufferers.  Prometheus,  as  exhibited  by  ^Eschylus,  is 
a  signal  benefactor.  He  is  what  writers  on  primitive 
religions  call  a  culture-hero,  one  whose  vocation  is  to 
teach  ignorant  untutored  races  the  rudiments  of 
civilisation.  He  taught  rude  primitive  men  the  use 
of  fire — stole  fire  from  heaven  for  their  benefit ; 
taught  them  to  speak  and  to  think  ;  instructed  them 
in  house-building  and  ship-building,  in  medicine, 
divination,  and  smelting  ore,  in  the  art  of  using 
the  stars  for  fixing  the  order  of  the  seasons:  in 
short,  enabled  them  to  pass  from  the  brutish  ignor- 
ance of  the  Stone  Age,  as  it  is  now  called,  when 

'no  craft  they  knew 

With  woven  brick  or  jointed  beam  to  pile 
The  sunward  porch  ;  but  in  the  dark  earth  burrowed 
And  housed,  like  tiny  ants,  in  sunless  caves,'  * 

to  the  intelligence  and  culture  of  civilised  humanity. 
The  same  hero  who  has  been  such  a  benefactor  to 
men  had  previously  done  signal  service  to  Zeus, 
helping  him  in  his  war  against  Kronos  and  the 
Titans,  and  securing  for  him  his  celestial  throne. 
Here  surely  was  one  who  had  deserved  well  at  the 

1  Prometheus  Bound,  457-461  ;  Blackie's  translation. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       81 

hands  of  both  gods  and  men  !  Yet  what  is  his  fate  ? 
To  be  chained  for  long  ages  to  a  rock  in  a  Scythian 
wilderness.  The  attempt  to  show  that  such  signal 
service  followed  by  such  barbarous  treatment  illus- 
trates the  justice  which  makes  conduct  and  lot 
correspond,  must  be  desperate.  One  would  rather 
say  that  such  an  experience  belonged  to  a  morally 
chaotic  age  when  Zeus  had  not  begun  to  be  just, 
when  in  the  exercise  of  a  newly-attained  sovereignty 
he  could  not  afford  to  be  either  just  or  generous, 
but  had  to  be  guided  in  his  action  by  selfish  policy 
rather  than  by  equity,  treating  as  enemies  those  who 
had  been  his  greatest  friends.  The  radical  defect  of 
the  legend  from  a  moral  point  of  view  is  that  the 
reign  of  Zeus,  the  fountain  of  Justice,  has  a  beginning, 
involving  as  a  necessary  consequence  that  justice  has 
a  beginning  also.  The  divine  monarch  is  thereby 
subjected  to  the  exigencies  of  an  Eastern  despot, 
whose  first  use  of  power  is  to  destroy  his  rivals,  and 
also  those  to  whom  he  has  been  much  indebted. 
How  one  who  was  so  earnest  in  proclaiming  the 
reality  of  a  just  moral  order  as  ^Eschylus  could  be 
attracted  by  so  uncouth  and  grim  a  story,  it  is  as 
difficult  to  understand  as  it  is  to  conjecture  how  he 
treated  it.  Was  his  motive  to  meet  an  objection  to 
his  favourite  theory,  to  answer  an  imaginary  opponent 
asking :  On  your  view,  what  do  you  make  of  the 
Prometheus  legend  ?  And  was  his  answer,  in  effect, 
this :  *  That  is  an  old-time  story ;  all  that  happened 


82   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

before  the  moral  order  was  settled ;  no  such  thing 
could  happen  now '  ?  How  the  legend  itself  arose  is 
another  puzzling  question.  Was  it  a  survival  from 
savage  times,  modified  and  transformed  in  the  long 
course  of  tradition?1  Or  had  it  for  its  fact-basis 
the  observation  that  benefactors  of  men  often  have 
a  hard  lot  ? 

The  Eumenides,  not  less  than  the  Prometheus 
Bound,  possesses  a  peculiar  interest  in  connection 
with  the  ^Eschylean  doctrine  of  Nemesis.  If  the 
latter  be  an  instance  of  apparently  flagrant  injustice 
belonging  to  a  rude  age  before  the  moral  order  was 
settled,  to  be  explained  away  or  apologised  for,  the 
former  supplies  an  instance  illustrating  the  difficulty 
of  applying  the  principle  of  retributive  justice  when 
right  seems  to  be  on  both  sides.  Orestes  slays  his 
mother,  Clytemnestra,  for  murdering  his  father,  her 
husband,  Agamemnon.  He  acts  on  the  counsels  of 
the  Delphic  oracle,  and  the  Erinnyes  pursue  him  for 
the  deed.  Divine  beings  take  opposite  sides  ;  Apollo 
advising  the  action,  the  Furies  driving  to  madness 
the  actor.  Which  of  these  is  in  the  right?  Is 
Orestes  a  hero  or  is  he  a  criminal  ?  or  is  he  both  in 
one  ?  How  is  the  principle  of  retributive  justice  to 
be  applied?  Must  the  scales  be  evenly  balanced, 
inclining  to  neither  side  ?  So  it  would  appear,  from 

1  According  to  Lang  (Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  ii.  31),  Mani,  the 
culture-hero  of  the  Maoris,  stole  fire  from  heaven,  like  Prometheus,  for 
his  people,  among  other  services,  such  as  inventing  barbs  for  spears 
and  hooks. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       83 

the  issue  of  the  trial  of  Orestes  before  the  Areopagus 
in  Athens,  which  is  that  the  votes  for  acquittal  and 
for  condemnation  are  equal,  Athene  giving  her 
casting  vote  in  favour  of  the  accused.  The  equality 
in  the  vote  is  significant.  It  is  a  virtual  confession 
that  there  are  cases  in  which  the  theory  of  retributive 
justice  breaks  down  ;  when  it  is  impossible  to  say 
how  on  that  theory  a  man  is  to  be  treated  ;  when  he 
cannot  be  treated  either  as  a  well-doer  or  as  an  evil- 
doer without  overlooking  an  essential  element  in  the 
case ;  and  whe»  the  only  possible  course  is  a  com- 
promise in  whicn  the  accused  gets  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt.  The  compromise  is  suggested  by  Athene, 
the  goddess  of  wisdom,  who  votes  for  Orestes  and 
strives  to  appease  and  soothe  his  relentless  pursuers. 
They,  however,  are  characteristically  reluctant  to  be 
appeased,  a  point  of  instructive  import  in  connection 
with  the  theory  of  Nemesis.  The  Erinnyes  of 
^Eschylus  are  a  marvellous  creation.  They  are  more 
than  a  powerful  artistic  representation  of  a  legend- 
ary group  of  avenging  deities.  They  possess  psycho- 
logical significance  as  symbols  of  the  punitive  action 
of  conscience.  In  this  point  of  view  certain  features 
in  the  dramatic  presentation  are  noteworthy.  The 
Furies  pursue  Orestes,  the  slayer  of  his  mother, 
not  Clytemnestra,  the  murderess  of  his  father;  he 
being  noble-minded,  she  thoroughly  bad.1  They 

1  The  formal  explanation  of  this  fact  is  that  the  Furies  pursued  only 
when  the  blood  shed  was  that  of  kindred  ;  but  Mr.  Symonds  truly 


84   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

are  unwilling  to  yield  to  the  counsels  of  wisdom, 
repeating  their  wild  song  of  relentless  pursuit  before 
yielding  to  the  persuasions  of  Athene.  They  do  at 
last  submit.  But,  though  constrained  to  surrender 
their  victim,  they  are  treated  with  great  respect  as 
a  power  making  for  righteousness  justly  inspiring 
wholesome  dread.  All  this  is  a  parable  embodying 
weighty  spiritual  truth.  The  nobler  the  nature,  the 
more  it  is  liable  to  become  the  prey  of  an  evil  con- 
science for  acts  which,  justifiable  under  a  certain 
aspect,  do  violence  to  tender  natural  affection.  A 
mother  may  deserve  to  die,  but  it  is  not  for  a  son 
to  be  the  executioner ;  and  if  he  be  a  man  of  fine 
nature,  he  cannot  play  that  part  with  impunity. 
Maddening  remorse  will  be  the  penalty.  And  that 
remorse  will  not  be  easily  exorcised  by  wise  reflec- 
tion on  the  ill  desert  of  the  dead  and  the  irrevocable- 
ness  of  the  deed.  It  will  keep  saying,  You  killed 
your  mother.  But  remorse,  though  obstinate,  need 
not  be  unconquerable.  The  greatest  offender  may 
take  comfort  in  the  thought  that  his  sin  is  not 
unpardonable,  and  the  time  comes  to  many  who 
have  been  in  a  hell  of  torment  when  they  are  able 
to  grasp  this  consoling  truth.  But  though  now  at 
rest,  they  never  regret  the  misery  they  have  passed 
through.  They  look  back  on  it  with  satisfaction  as 

observes  that  *in  a  deeper  sense  it  was  artistically  fitting  that  Clytem- 
nestra  should  remain  unvisiied  by  the  dread  goddesses.  They  were  the 
deities  of  remorse,  and  she  had  steeled  her  soul  against  the  stings  of 
conscience'  (Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets^  1st  series,  p.  191). 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       85 

an  expiation  for  their  sin.  Remorse  is  the  penalty  for 
wrong  done  to  the  best  feelings  of  our  nature.  It  is 
penalty  enough.  No  need  for  added  pains  to  punish 
the  man  who  has  suffered  mental  agony  through 
conflict  between  feelings,  both  in  their  own  place 
good,  the  sense  of  justice  and  the  affection  of  love. 
That  agony  satisfies  the  moral  order.  It  is  also 
justified  by  the  moral  order.  For  Orestes  is  indeed  an 
offender.  He  should  have  consulted  his  conscience, 
not  the  Delphic  oracle.  No  need  for  any  other 
oracle  than  conscience  to  tell  him  that  his  mother 
must  suffer  for  her  crime  by  other  hands  than  his. 

In  passing  from  ^Eschylus  to  Sophocles  we  become 
conscious  of  a  considerable  change  in  the  moral 
atmosphere.  He  is  less  of  a  theologian,  more  of  an 
artist,  than  his  predecessor.  The  human  interest 
of  his  story  counts  for  more  with  him  than  problems 
in  ethics  and  religion.  He  does  not  deny  the 
^Eschylean  theory  of  retribution :  on  the  contrary, 
he  accepts  and  re-echoes  it,  but  only  half-heartedly, 
with  less  depth  of  conviction  and  fainter  emphasis 
of  utterance.  He  sees  that  there  are  many  excep- 
tions to  the  theory,  many  instances  in  which  no 
intelligible  moral  law  can  be  detected ;  human 
experiences  in  which  a  reign  of  chance  rather  than 
of  moral  order  seems  to  prevail.  Life  appears  to 
him  a  mystery  too  deep  and  complex  to  be 
explained  by  any  cut-and-dried  theory  such  as 


86   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

that  which  insists  on  a  uniform  correspondence 
between  conduct  and  lot. 

Such  being  the  attitude  of  Sophocles,  we  do  not 
expect  to  find  in  his  dramas  either  such  splendid 
exemplifications,  or  such  memorable  statements,  of 
the  law  of  Nemesis,  as  we  meet  with  in  the  pages 
of  ^Eschylus.  Yet  sufficient,  if  not  signal,  homage 
is  done  to  the  law  by  occasional  sayings  such  as  the 
few  samples  which  follow. 

CEdipus  at  Colonus  thus  addresses  his  friends : 

*  If  thou  honourest  the  gods,  show  thy  reverence  by  thine 
acts  ;  and  remember  that  their  eyes  are  over  all  men, 
regarding  both  the  evil  and  the  good.' l 

Creon  in  Antigone  asks  : 

'Dost  thou  see  the  gods  honouring  evil  men?** 

The  swift  punishment  of  wrong  is  proclaimed  in 
the  same  drama  in  these  terms  : 

'Lo,  they  come,  the  gods'  swift-footed  ministers  of  ill, 
And  in  an  instant  lay  the  wicked  low.' 3 

Slow  punishment  is  hinted  at  in  these  words  from 
(Edipus  Coloneus : 

'The  gods  see  well,  though  slowly,  when  one  turns  from 
their  worship  to  the  madness  of  impiety.'4 

Sometimes  the  expression  of  this  faith  is  coloured 

1  (Edipus  ColonZus,  277-281,  translation   from  D'Arcy  Thomson's 
Sales  Attici.  2  Antigone,  288. 

*  Ibid.,  1104-1106;  translated  by  Plumptrc. 

*  (Edipus  Colon Jus,  1536-9. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       87 

by  a  tinge  of  doubt.  Thus  Philoctetes,  maddened  by 
a  sense  of  wrong,  exclaims : 

*  Perdition  seize  you  all ! 

And  it  shall  seize  you,  seeing  ye  have  wronged 
Him  who  stands  here,  if  yet  the  gods  regard 
Or  right  or  truth.    And  full  assured  am  I 
They  do  regard  them.' 1 

Two  different,  if  not  incompatible,  points  of  view 
are  combined  in  these  words  spoken  by  Athene  to 
Ulysses : 

'  All  human  things 
A  day  lays  low,  a  day  lifts  up  again. 
Yet  still  the  gods  love  those  of  temperate  mind, 
And  hate  the  bad?'2 

The  sombre  sentiment  expressed  in  the  first 
sentence  of  this  extract  recurs  with  significant 
frequency  in  the  pages  of  Sophocles.  The  fleeting, 
unstable  nature  of  human  fortune,  irrespective  of 
character,  is  a  trite  theme  with  him.  Thus  in 
CEdipus  Tyrannus  the  chorus  sing : 

'  Ah,  race  of  mortal  men, 
How  as  a  thing  of  nought 
I  count  ye,  though  ye  live ; 
For  who  is  there  of  men 
That  more  of  blessing  knows, 
Than  just  a  little  while 
In  a  vain  show  to  stand, 
And,  having  stood,  to  fall?'8 

1  Philoctttes,  1035-39.  *  Ajaxy  130-133. 

8  1186-1193;  Plumptre's  translation. 


88   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

In  a  fragment  preserved  from  an  unknown  drama 
the  changefulness  of  life  is  likened  to  the  phases  of 
the  moon  : 

'  Human  fortunes,  good  and  ill, 
Never  stand  a  moment  still ; 
To  a  wheel  divine  they  're  bound, 
Turning  ever  round  and  round ; 
The  moon  of  our  prosperity 
Wanes  and  waxes  in  the  sky  ; 
Plays  her  fickle  and  constant  game, 
Aye  a-changing,  aye  the  same  : 
See  1  her  crescent  of  pale  light 
Gathers  beauty  night  by  night ; 
Till,  when  sphered  in  perfect  grace, 
Gradual  she  dims  her  face  ; 
Lies  anon  on  heaven's  blue  floor 
A  silver  bow,  and  nothing  more.' l 

The  phases  of  the  moon,  however  brief  their  period, 
still  run  through  a  regular  course.  The  misery  of 
human  life,  as  depicted  by  Sophocles,  includes  sub- 
jection to  the  caprice  of  chance  not  less  than  to 
periodic  change.  The  Messenger  in  Antigone  thus 
delivers  his  opinion : 

'  I  know  no  life  of  mortal  man  which  I 
Would  either  praise  or  blame.     It  is  but  chance 
That  raiseth  up,  and  chance  that  bringeth  low, 
The  man  who  lives  in  good  or  evil  plight, 
And  none  foretells  a  man's  appointed  lot.'2 

In   a   fragment   from   a   lost   drama,   one   of  the 

1  Fabula  Incerta,  translated  by  D'Arcy  Thomson  in  Sales  Attici% 
p.  81. 
8  1156-1160;  translated  by  Plumptrc. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       89 

dramatis  persona  sums  up  his  philosophy  of  life  in 
these  pithy  terms : 

*  Say  not  them  of  weal  or  woe  : 
'Tis  big,  or  little,  or  not  at  all : 
For  mortal  blessings  come  and  go, 
As  flit  sun-shadows  athwart  a  wall.'1 

This  is  dismal  enough :  human  experience  without 
any  traceable  order  or  law,  given  up  to  the  dominion 
of  hazard,  so  that  anything  may  happen  to  any  man 
at  any  moment.  But  there  is  something  more  dismal 
still :  human  experience  subject  to  an  evil  order,  re- 
versing the  awards  of  the  moral  order,  and  assigning 
prosperity  and  adversity  with  sinister  indifference 
to  desert.  That  our  poet  was  keenly  alive  to  the 
existence  of  phenomena  of  this  sort  appears  from 
another  fragment  out  of  the  same  drama  from  which 
our  last  quotation  is  taken.  I  give  it  in  the  version 
supplied  by  Mr.  Symonds  : 

*  'Tis  terrible  that  impious  men,  the  sons 
Of  sinners,  even  such  should  thrive  and  prosper, 
While  men  by  virtue  moulded,  sprung  from  sires 
Complete  in  goodness,  should  be  born  to  suffer. 
Nay,  but  the  gods  do  ill  in  dealing  thus 
With  mortals  !     It  were  well  that  pious  men 
Should  take  some  signal  guerdon  at  their  hands; 
But  evil-doers,  on  their  heads  should  fall 
Conspicuous  punishment  for  deeds  ill-done. 
Then  should  no  wicked  man  fare  well  and  flourish.'  * 

These  sentiments  concerning  the  changefulness 
and  chancefulness  and  moral  confusion  of  life  make, 

1  Aletes :  Thomson's  translation  ;  rather  free. 

*  Symonds,  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets  >  2nd  series,  p.  273, 


90   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

on  the  whole,  a  depressing  impression.  They  arc 
pessimistic  in  tone,  though  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  the  poet  had  any  intention  to  teach  a  full-blown 
pessimistic  theory.  He  took  life  as  he  found  it ;  and 
fie  found  it  dark  enough,  so  dark  that  in  gloomy 
moments  a  thoughtful  man  might  be  tempted  to 
doubt  whether  it  were  worth  living.  A  reflection  of 
this  despairing  mood  may  be  found  in  these  lines 
from  a  choral  ode  in  (Edipus  at  Colonus : 

4  Happiest  beyond  compare 
Never  to  taste  of  life  ; 
Happiest  in  order  next, 
Being  born,  with  quickest  speed 
Thither  again  to  turn 
From  whence  we  came.'  * 

And  in  this  from  The  Maidens  of  Trachis : 

*  On  two  short  days,  or  more,  our  hopes  are  vain ; 
The  morrow  is  as  nought,  till  one  shall  show 
The  present  day  in  fair  prosperity.'  * 

Yet  we  must  never  forget  that  the  man  who  made 
his  dramatic  characters  utter  such  sombre  sentiments, 
also  put  into  the  mouth  of  Antigone  that  grand  de- 
claration concerning  the  eternal  unwritten  laws  of 
God  that  know  no  change,  and  are  not  of  to-day  nor 
yesterday,  and  that  must  be  obeyed  in  preference  to 
the  temporary  commandments  of  men.3  One  who 
believes  in  these  eternal  laws  of  duty,  as  expressing 
the  inmost  mind  of  deity,  and  that  reckons  com- 

1  1223-1228;  Plumptre's  translation. 

1  943-946 ;  Plumptre's  translation.  8  Antigone,  455-459- 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       91 

pliance  with  them  at  all  hazards  the  supreme 
obligation,  cannot  with  propriety  be  classed  with 
pessimists,  though  that  Antigone  should  suffer  for 
her  loyalty  to  these  sovereign  behests  may  appear 
to  him  a  great  mystery.  If  he  does  not  understand 
Antigone's  fate,  he  at  least  sees  in  it  a  moral 
sublimity  which  redeems  life  from  worthlessness  and 
vulgarity.  Nay,  the  nobleness  of  her  self-sacrifice 
seems  to  bring  him  to  the  threshold  of  a  great 
discovery :  that  such  a  life  cannot  be  wasted,  but 
must  possess  redemptive  value.  What  but  this  is 
the  meaning  of  these  words  spoken  to  Antigone  by 
her  father  CEdipus :  '  One  soul  acting  in  the  strength 
of  love,  is  better  than  a  thousand  to  atone.'1  A 
single  utterance  like  this  may  not  justify  the  con- 
clusion that  the  poet  had  fully  grasped  the  principle 
of  vicarious  atonement,  but  it  does  show  that  the 
idea  was  beginning  to  dawn  on  his  mind. 

It  is  now,  happily,  quite  unnecessary  to  waste 
time  in  defending  Euripides  against  the  prejudiced 
criticism  of  scholars  who,  taking  Sophocles  as  the 
model,  see  in  him  nothing  but  artistic  blemishes, 
or  the  still  more  prejudiced  diatribes  of  religious 
philosophers  who,  biassed  by  pet  theories,  see  in  him 
nothing  but  an  impious  scoffer.  We  can  afford  to 
smile  at  the  oracular  verdict  pronounced  upon  him 

1  Vide  Plumptre's  '  Essay  on  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Sophocles,* 
vol.  i.  of  his  translation,  pp.  Ixxvii.-xcix. 


92   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

by  Bunsen,  that  his  theory  of  the  universe  is  that  of 
Candide,  and  that  the  religion  of  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles  was  as  repugnant  to  him  as  that  of  the 
Psalms  and  Prophets  was  to  Voltaire.1  The  man 
whose  dramatic  productions  have  been  a  delight 
to  poets  like  Milton,  Goethe,  and  Browning,  can 
dispense  with  the  patronage  of  learned  critics ;  and 
as  for  his  religious  and  ethical  bent,  it  is  sufficiently 
guaranteed  by  the  fact  of  his  belonging  to  the 
Socratic  circle.  It  will  be  well  to  come  to  the  study 
of  his  sentiments  on  the  topics  which  concern  us 
with  this  fact  in  our  minds,  and  to  remember  that 
when  a  play  of  Euripides  was  to  be  put  upon  the 
stage  Socrates  was  ever  likely  to  be  one  of  the 
spectators.  Euripides  was  doubtless  a  sceptic  in 
reference  to  the  mythology  of  Greece,  but  that  in  no 
way  impugns  the  sincerity  and  depth  of  his  ethical 
and  religious  convictions.  He  believed  in  God  if 
not  in  the  gods,  he  reverenced  moral  law,  and  he  had 
no  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  a  moral  order,  though 
it  may  be  that  he  did  not  rest  his  faith  therein  on 
the  same  religious  foundation  as  ^Eschylus.  It  may 
be  well  to  offer  a  few  vouchers  of  this  last  statement 
before  going  on  to  notice  the  more  distinctive  con- 

1  God  in  History ',  ii.  224.  For  a  chillingly  unappreciative  estimate 
of  Euripides  vide  Religion  in  Greek  Literature,  by  Dr.  Lewis  Campbell, 
1898.  According  to  this  author,  Euripides  was  simply  a  melodramatist 
whose  task  was  rather  to  interest  than  to  instruct ;  his  connection  or 
sympathy  with  Socrates  is  regarded  as  d  ubtful ;  the  examples  of  self- 
devotion  which  brighten  his  pages  are  spoken  of  as  recurring  'with 
almost  monotonous  frequency.' 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS :  NEMESIS       93 

tribution  of  this  great  Master  of  song  to  the  doctrine 
of  Providence. 

The  Hercules  Furens  contains  an  explicit  testimony 
to  the  Power-not-ourselves  making  for  righteousness. 
Just  before,  it  is  true,  the  chorus  have  made  a  rather 
profane  and  senseless  complaint  that  the  gods  have 
not  given  to  the  good,  as  the  unmistakable  stamp 
of  their  worth,  the  privilege  of  being  a  second  time 
young,  so  that  they  might  be  as  easily  recognised 
as  the  stars  at  sea  by  sailors.1  But  for  this  incon- 
siderate outburst  the  poet  makes  ample  amends  by 
putting  into  the  mouths  of  the  chorus  this  distinct 
confession  of  faith  in  the  moral  order : 

*  The  gods  from  on  high  regard  the  wicked  and  the  good. 
Wealth  and  prosperity  try  the  hearts  of  men,  and  lead 

them  on  to  the  ways  of  unrighteousness  ; 
For  he  that  is  prosperous  saith  within  himself:  surely  the 

evil  days  will  never  come  : 
Therefore  driveth  he  furiously  in  the  race;  and  heedeth 

not  the  limits  of  the  course  ; 
And  he  striketh  his  wheel  against  a  stone  of  stumbling ; 

and  dasheth  in  pieces  the  chariot  of  his  prosperity.' 2 

This  also  from  Ion  has  the  ring  of  conviction  in  it. 
It  is  the  last  word  in  a  drama  replete  with  beautiful 
wise  thought : 

*  Let  the  man  who  worships  the  divine  beings  be  of  good 
cheer,  when  his  house  is  visited  with  misfortune. 
For  in  the  end  the  worthy  obtain  their  deserts  and 
the  wicked,  as  is  meet,  shall  not  prosper.'3 

1  Hercules  Furens,  646-660. 

8  Ibid.t  753-760;  Thomson's  translation.  *  Ion,  1620-1623. 


94   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Artemis  in  Hippolytus  declares  that '  the  gods  have 
no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the  righteous,  but  they 
destroy  the  wicked  with  their  children  and  homes.'1 

Euripides  is  familiar  with  such  great  truths  of  the 
moral  order  as  these  :  that  confession  takes  a  burden 
off  the  heart,2  and  that  in  all  human  thought  and 
action  God  co-operates.*  But  it  is  specially  to  be 
noted  that  he  has  some  insight  into  the  'method 
of  inwardness/  a  glimpse,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  truth 
that  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  human  conduct 
are  to  be  sought  not  merely  or  chiefly  in  the  sphere 
of  outward  life,  but  in  the  state  of  the  heart.  He 
understands,  at  least  dimly,  that  to  be  spiritually- 
minded  is  life  and  peace.  Witness  this  hymn  of 
Hippolytus  to  Artemis : 

*  For  thee  this  woven  garland  from  a  mead 
Unsullied  have  I  twined,  O  Queen,  and  bring. 
There  never  shepherd  dares  to  feed  his  flock, 
Nor  steel  of  sickle  came  :  only  the  bee 
Roveth  the  springtide  mead  undesecrate  : 
And  Reverence  watereth  it  with  river-dews. 
They  which  have  heritage  of  self-control 
In  all  things,  not  taught,  but  the  pure  in  heart — 
These  there  may  gather  flowers,  but  none  impure. 
Now  Queen,  dear  Queen,  receive  this  anadem, 
From  reverent  hand  to  deck  thy  golden  hair ; 
For  to  me  sole  of  men  this  grace  is  given 
That  I  be  with  thee,  converse  hold  with  thee, 
Hearing  thy  voice,  yet  seeing  not  thy  face. 
And  may  I  end  life's  race  as  I  began.'4 

1  Hippolytus,  1329-30.  3  Ion,  874-6.  »  Supplier,  736-8. 

4  Hippolytus,  73-87.  The  translation  is  by  Arthur  S.  Way,  The 
Tragedies  of  Euripides  in  English  Verse,  vol.  i.  p.  127. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       95 

That  the  penalty  of  wrongdoing  is  also  to  be 
sought  within  seems  to  be  hinted  at  in  this  fragment 
from  a  lost  drama  : 

*  Think  you  that  sins  leap  up  to  heaven  aloft 
On  wings,  and  then  that  on  Jove's  red-leaved  tablets 
Some  one  doth  write  them,  and  Jove  looks  at  them 
In  judging  mortals  ?    Not  the  whole  broad  heaven, 
If  Jove  should  write  our  sins,  would  be  enough, 
Nor  he  suffice  to  punish  them.    But  Justice 
Is  here,  is  somewhere  near  us.'1 

These  extracts  seem  to  bring  us  within  measur- 
able distance  of  New  Testament  ethics.  But  we 
get  nearer  still  to  Christian  thought  along  a  different 
path.  The  light  of  that  day  whose  dim  dawn  we 
descried  in  Sophocles  shines  on  the  pages  of 
Euripides.  He  sees  the  glory  and  the  power  of 
self-sacrifice.  He  understands  that  the  good  man's 
life  is  not  self-centred,  but  rather  is  a  fountain  of 
benefit  to  all  around.  In  the  Children  of  Hercules y 
which  contains  one  of  the  most  signal  examples  of 
sacrifice,  he  opens  with  this  sentiment  put  into  the 
mouth  of  lolaus,  the  nephew  of  Hercules :  *  This 
has  long  been  my  opinion :  the  just  man  lives  for 
his  neighbours,  but  the  man  whose  mind  is  bent  on 
gain  is  useless  to  the  city,  hard  to  conciliate,  good 
only  to  himself.' 

The  novelty  of  this  point  of  view — living  for  others 
the  mark  of  goodness — may  be  seen  by  comparing 

1  Fragment  from  Mdanippet  translation  from  Symonds,  2nd 
series,  p.  293. 


96   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  behaviour  of  Iphigenia,  daughter  of  Agamemnon, 
when  she  is  being  sacrificed  at  Aulis,  as  described  by 
^Eschylus,  with  the  account  given  of  the  same  scene 
by  Euripides.  In  the  Agamemnon  of  the  earlier  poet 
the  sacrificed  maiden  is  simply  a  reluctant  victim, 
casting  at  those  who  offered  her  to  the  gods  a  piteous, 
piercing  glance,  and  unable,  though  wishing,  to  speak.1 
In  the  Iphigenia  in  Aulis  of  Euripides,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  daughter  of  King  Agamemnon,  after  a 
struggle  with  natural  feeling,  rises  at  length  to  the 
heroic  mood  of  self-devotion,  and  seeks  to  reconcile 
her  outraged  mother  to  the  inevitable  by  such  argu- 
ments as  these  :  Greece  looks  to  me  ;  on  me  depends 
the  prosperous  voyage  of  the  fleet  to  Troy  and  the 
destruction  of  that  city;  I  shall  have  the  happy 
renown  of  having  saved  my  country ;  I  may  not 
be  too  attached  to  life,  for  as  a  common  boon  to 
the  Greeks,  not  for  yourself  only,  you  bore  me.2 
The  opportunity  it  affords  him  of  exemplifying  this 
mood  is  the  chief,  if  not  sole,  source  of  the  poet's 
interest  in  the  whole  story.  He  has  no  faith  in 
the  oracles  of  soothsayers  which  pronounced  the 
sacrifice  necessary,  no  faith  in  the  gods  who 
demanded  it,  no  faith  in  its  efficacy,  no  faith  even 
in  its  reality ;  for  in  his  presentation  of  the  legend 
the  victim  is  rescued  and  appears  afterwards  as  a 
priestess  in  Tauris.  But  he  has  faith  in  self-sacrifice 
as  the  highest  virtue,  and  he  loses  no  opportunity  of 

1  Agamemnon,  230-235.  *  Iphigenia  in  Aulis,  I347-'36S' 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       97 

eulogising  it,  as  in  the  instances  of  Menoekeus  in 
the  Phcemssce,  who,  in  accordance  with  the  prophecy 
of  Tiresias,  kills  himself  to  save  Thebes,1  and  of 
Polyxena  in  Hecuba? 

The  most  pathetic  instances,  however,  are  those  of 
Macaria  and  Alcestis.  In  the  case  of  Macaria,  the 
daughter  of  Hercules,  the  element  of  voluntariness  is 
very  conspicuous.  The  oracle  demands  that  some 
one  shall  die,  but  does  not  indicate  the  particular 
victim.  Theseus,  though  willing  now,  as  at  all 
times,  to  defend  the  cause  of  the  innocent,  refuses 
to  give  any  of  his  family  as  a  sacrifice  for  the 
Heraclidae.  In  this  crisis  Macaria  comes  to  the 
rescue  and  offers  herself.  lolaus,  guardian  of  the 
children  of  Hercules,  approves  her  spirit,  but  to 
soften  the  rigour  of  a  hard  fate  proposes  that  the 
victim  should  be  determined  by  lot.  To  which 
Macaria  replies  in  these  remarkable  terms :  '  I  will 
not  die  by  lot,  for  there  is  no  merit  in  that.  Do 
not  speak  of  it,  old  man.  But  if  ye  choose  to 
take  me,  ready  as  I  am,  I  willingly  give  my  life 
for  these,  but  not  under  compulsion.'3 

The  most  signal  example  of  self-sacrificing  love 
is  supplied  in  the  beautiful  tale  of  Alcestis  related 
in  the  tragedy  of  the  same  name.  Admetus,  king 
of  Pherae,  in  Thessaly,  is  sick  and  about  to  die. 
Apollo,  who  had  formerly  served  the  king  as  a 

1  The  Phoenician  Damsels,  990-1015. 

2  Vide  lines  339-375. 
»  Heraclida,  547-557- 

G 


98   THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

herdsman,  in  reward  for  past  kindness  asks  and 
obtains  from  the  Fates  a  respite  for  Admetus,  on 
condition  that  he  find  some  one  willing  to  die  for 
him.  The  king  asks  all  his  friends  in  turn  to  do 
him  this  service,  but  in  vain.  At  last  his  wife, 
Alcestis,  hearing  how  matters  stand,  offers  to  grant 
the  boon  all  others  had  refused.  She  sickens  and 
dies  accordingly.  Hercules  arrives  shortly  after, 
and,  on  learning  what  has  happened,  goes  to  the 
tomb  of  the  deceased,  brings  her  back  to  life  and 
restores  her  to  her  husband. 

In  his  Symposium  Plato  alludes  to  this  story  as 
illustrating  the  doctrine  that  love  is  ever  ready  to 
do  anything  that  may  be  required  of  it  for  the 
good  of  the  object  loved,  even  to  die  in  its  behalf 
(vTrepaTToOvrjcriceiv).  He  could  not  have  chosen  a 
better  example.  Love  was  the  sole  motive  of 
Alcestis.  She  does  not  nerve  herself  to  the  need- 
ful pitch  of  heroic  fortitude  by  considerations  of 
patriotism  or  posthumous  fame.  She  makes  no  fuss 
about  the  matter,  nor  does  the  poet  make  it  for 
her.  She  is  not  brought  on  the  stage  resolving 
to  die,  and  telling  what  has  helped  her  to  adopt 
such  a  resolution.  The  curtain  is  lifted  on  a  woman 
lying  sick  on  a  couch.  She  speaks  but  once,  to 
bid  farewell  to  her  husband,  and  to  utter  her  last 
wishes.  Her  praises  are  sung  for  her,  not  by  her. 
An  attendant  relates  with  enthusiasm  her  behaviour 
on  the  morning  of  her  last  day,  in  terms  of  exquisite 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS       99 

pathos.  The  choral  odes  referring  to  her  noble  action 
are  singularly  beautiful.  One  declares  that  Alcestis 
will  be  a  theme  of  song  to  the  poets  of  Greece  in  all 
after  ages  ;  another  sings  of  the  inevitable  dominion 
of  death,  and  then  of  the  consolations  of  posthumous 
fame  in  these  glowing  terms  : — 

1  Deem  not  she  sleeps  like  those  devoid  of  fame, 

Unconscious  in  the  lap  of  earth  ; 
Such  homage  as  the  gods  from  mortals  claim 
Each  traveller  shall  pay  her  matchless  worth, 
Digressing  from  his  road  ;  and  these  bold  thoughts, 
Expressed  in  no  faint  language,  utter  o'er  her  grave  : 
"  She  died  to  save  her  Lord,  and  now 
She  dwells  among  the  blest. 
Hail,  Sainted  Matron  !  and  this  realm  befriend."-'  * 

The  love  of  Alcestis  is  beautiful,  but  the  occasion 
of  her  self-sacrifice  does  not  command  our  respect. 
Indeed,  none  of  the  occasions  of  self-sacrifice  in  the 
dramas  of  Euripides  do  this.  They  are,  in  other 
instances,  the  result  of  superstition  ;  in  the  one 
before  us,  of  selfishness.  Why  could  Admetus  not 
die  himself,  after  having  lived  sufficiently  long? 
Probably  Euripides  had  no  more  respect  for  the 
occasion  than  we  have;  no  more  respect,  I  may 
add,  than  he  had  for  the  legend  that  Alcestis  was 
brought  back  to  life  by  Hercules.  There  is  probably 
truth  in  the  view  of  Mr.  Verrall  that  the  poet  did 
not  believe  that  Alcestis  was  really  dead.2  His 

1  Alcestis,  1007-1014  ;  Wodhull's  translation.     Cf.  Way's  translation 
in  The  Tragedies  of  Euripides  in  English  Verse ,  vol.  i.  p.  51. 

2  Verrall's  Euripides  the  Rationalist,  p.  75. 


ioo  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

point  was  that  Alcestis  was  willing  to  die.  And 
as  for  the  occasions  of  self-sacrifice,  he  took  this 
one,  and  all  the  rest,  as  they  were  furnished  to  him 
by  tradition.  They  were  welcome  as  giving  him  the 
opportunity  of  preaching  his  favourite  doctrine  that 
the  spirit  of  self-devotion  is  the  soul  of  goodness. 

This  doctrine  was  an  important  contribution  to 
ethics.  How  far  Euripides  was  aware  of  the  extent 
to  which  life  afforded  natural  and  most  real  oppor- 
tunities for  the  display  of  the  self-sacrificing  temper 
of  love  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  It  may 
be  assumed  that  it  was  a  subject  possessing  keen 
interest  to  his  mind,  and  that  he  was  a  close 
observer  of  all  illustrative  phenomena.  It  may 
also  be  assumed  that  in  utilising  the  traditional 
data  supplied  by  heroic  legends  he  had  something 
more  important  and  specific  in  view  than  to  illustrate 
the  '  pluck,'  as  it  has  been  called  (eityi^ia),  of  Greek 
men  and  women.1  Not  the  physical  virtue  of '  pluck,' 
though  that  element  might  have  its  place,  but  the 
high  moral  virtue  of  self-devotion,  was  his  theme. 
And,  seeing  that  virtue  awakened  in  his  soul  such 
an  ardent  enthusiasm,  he  could  not  have  found  it 
hard  to  believe  that  a  moral  order  which  afforded 
large  scope  for  its  exercise  was  not  an  evil  order 
but  rather  a  beneficent  one,  which  might  have  been 

1  Symonds,  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  is.  series,  p.  212.  Mr. 
Symonds  sees  in  the  value  set  on  eityi/xfa  by  Euripides  a  reflection  of 
the  advancing  tendencies  of  philosophy  containing  the  germ  of  the 
Stoical  doctrine  of  Kaprepia. 


THE  GREEK  TRAGEDIANS:  NEMESIS     ici 

appointed  by  a  benignant  deity.  It  has  indeed 
been  denied  that  Euripides  had  any  such  belief, 
while  his  merit  in  proclaiming  the  vicarious  nature 
of  love  is  fully  acknowledged.  Professor  Watson 
remarks :  '  It  is  only  in  Euripides  that  we  find 
something  like  an  anticipation  of  the  Christian 
idea  that  self-realisation  is  attained  through  self- 
sacrifice.  In  Euripides,  however,  this  result  is 
reached  by  a  surrender  of  his  faith  in  divine  justice. 
Man,  he  seems  to  say,  is  capable  of  heroic  self- 
sacrifice,  at  the  prompting  of  natural  affection,  but 
this  is  the  law  of  human  nature,  not  of  the  divine 
nature.  Thus  in  him  morality  is  divorced  from 
religion,  and  therefore  there  is  over  all  his  work 
the  sadness  which  inevitably  follows  from  a  sceptical 
distrust  of  the  existence  of  any  objective  principle 
of  goodness.'1  I  am  not  satisfied  that  this  is  a 
well-grounded  judgment.  The  spirit  of  Euripides, 
I  believe,  was  the  spirit  of  Socrates,  the  martyr,  and 
the  devout  believer  in  a  beneficent  deity.  There 
may  be  sadness  in  his  writings,  but  there  is  neither 
cynicism  nor  pessimism.  An  admirer  of  heroic  love 
cannot  be  a  pessimist.  He  sees  in  love's  sacrifice 
not  merely  the  darkest,  but  the  brightest  feature  in 
the  world's  history.  All  that  is  needed  to  make 
him  an  optimist  is  that  he  have  faith  in  a  God  in 
harmony  with  his  own  ethical  creed  :  admiring  self- 
sacrifice  ;  yea,  himself  capable  of  it.  That  Euripides 

1  Christianity  and  Idealism^  p.  39. 


102  THE*  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

had  fully  found  such  a  God  I  do  not  assert.  That 
he  was  on  the  way  to  the  discovery  I  cannot  doubt. 
The  idea  of  God  as  the  absolutely  good  was  familiar 
to  the  Socratic  circle,  as  we  learn  from  the  Dialogues 
of  Plato,  and  such  a  man  as  Euripides  could  neither 
be  unacquainted  with  it  nor  fail  to  perceive  its  value. 
It  is  true  that  in  his  pages,  as  in  those  of  his  brother- 
dramatists,  the  dark  shadow  of  a  morally  indifferent 
Fate  (Molpa)  now  and  then  makes  its  appearance,  as 
in  these  lines : 

*  A  bow  of  steel  is  hard  to  bend, 
And  stern  a  proud  man's  will ; 

But  Fate,  that  shapeth  every  end, 
Is  sterner,  harder  still ; 

E'en  God  within  the  indented  groove 

Of  Fate's  resolve  Himself  must  move.'1 

This  utterance  points  to  a  species  of  dualism,  a 
conflict  between  a  benignant  Providence  and  a  blind 
force  which  exercises  sway  over  both  gods  and  men. 
There  is  a  dualism  in  Plato  also.  A  certain  in- 
tractableness  in  matter  resists  the  will  of  the  Good 
Spirit  so  that  he  cannot  make  the  world  perfect,  but 
only  as  good  as  possible.2  But  the  thing  to  be  thank- 
ful for  in  Plato  is  the  clear  perception  that  the  will 
of  God  is  absolutely  good,  if  his  power  be  limited. 
Euripides  also,  I  think,  had  a  glimpse  of  this  truth. 

1  D'Arcy  Thomson's  Safes  Attici,  p.  213,  based  on  a  chorus  in  the 
Alcestis  (962-981).  For  a  literal  translation  vide  Way,  The  Tragedies 
of  Euripides,  vol.  i.  p.  49. 

»  Vide  Lecture  X. 


LECTURE    IV 

THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE 

THE  system  of  thought  and  the  way  of  life  which 
go  by  the  name  of  Stoicism  constitute  a  pheno- 
menon not  less  remarkable  in  its  fashion  than  the 
ethical  wisdom  of  the  great  Greek  tragedians.  Zeno, 
Cleanthes,  and  Chrysippus,  the  founders  of  the  school 
of  the  porch,  are  in  some  respects  as  notable  a  triad 
as  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides.  Their  dis- 
tinction, however,  lies,  not  like  that  of  the  three 
poets,  in  literary  genius,  but  in  moral  intensity. 
Their  thoughts  of  God,  man,  duty,  and  destiny,  and 
the  life  in  which  these  found  practical  embodiment, 
present  the  best  religious  product  of  Greek  philo- 
sophy. There  is  room  indeed  for  doubt  whether  that 
philosophy  can  be  credited  with  the  exclusive  parent- 
age of  so  worthy  an  offspring.  The  influence  of 
Socrates  is  of  course  very  manifest  in  the  ethical 
spirit  of  the  Stoics.  But  something  more  than 
Socrates  seems  to  be  discernible  there:  something 
new,  foreign;  a  stern  temper  in  striking  contrast  to 
Hellenic  lightheartedness ;  a  seriousness  reminding 

103 


104  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

us  more  of  the  gravity  of  a  Hebrew  prophet  than  of 
the  gaiety  of  a  Greek  philosopher. 

This  first  impression  is  seen  to  be  more  than  a 
passing  fancy  when  it  is  considered  that  the  early 
masters  and  scholars  of  Stoicism  were  actually,  for 
the  most  part,  strangers  from  the  East,  and  not  a 
few  of  them  natives  of  Semitic  towns  or  colonies. 
Zeno,  the  first  founder,  was  from  Citium,  a  Phoenician 
colony  in  Cyprus,  and  he  commonly  went  by  the 
name  of  '  the  Phoenician,'  a  fact  which  bears  witness 
to  his  Semitic  origin.  Thus  the  hypothesis  readily 
suggests  itself  that  race  enters  as  a  factor  in  the 
genesis  of  Stoicism,  that  the  peculiarities  of  this  new 
phase  of  Greek  philosophy  are  the  unmistakable 
product  of  Semitic  genius.  This  view  has  been 
adopted  and  earnestly  advocated  by  such  competent 
writers  as  Sir  Alexander  Grant1  and  Bishop  Light- 
foot.2  Their  high  authority  cannot  lightly  be  dis- 
regarded ;  but  if  we  do  not  feel  able  to  share  their 
confidence  as  to  the  certainty  of  this  racial  theory, 
we  shall  do  well  at  least  to  lay  to  heart  the  ethical 
affinity  which  it  is  adduced  to  explain.  The  Stoic 
temper  and  the  Semitic  temper  are  kindred.  The 
Stoic  philosophy  is,  so  to  speak,  Hebrew  wisdom 
transplanted  into  Greek  soil ;  like  the  latter,  intensely 
ethical  in  spirit,  and  practical  in  tendency.  In  both 
we  discern  the  same  leading  characteristics :  '  the 

1   Vide  his  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  3rd  edition,  vol.  i.  Essay  VI. 

1  Vide  his  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  t/n  Philippians,  Dissertation  IL 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  105 

recognition  of  the  claims  of  the  individual  soul,  the 
sense  of  personal  responsibility,  the  habit  of  judicial 
introspection,  in  short  the  subjective  view  of  ethics.'1 

Stoicism  was  at  once  intensely  ethical  and  in- 
tensely individualistic.  It  contemplated  the  universe 
from  the  view-point  of  the  individual  man,  and  the 
thing  of  supreme  interest  for  it  in  the  individual 
man  was  his  moral  consciousness.  The  latter  feature, 
as  we  have  seen,  may  be  traced  partly  to  the  in- 
fluence of  Socrates,  partly  to  the  influence  of  the 
Semitic  spirit ;  the  former  was  the  natural  result 
of  the  complete  breakdown  of  the  political  life 
of  Greece  due  to  the  Macedonian  conquest.  It  is 
necessary  to  note  the  time  at  which  the  Stoical 
movement  made  its  appearance.  Like  all  great 
spiritual  movements,  it  came  when  the  world  was 
prepared  for  it  and  needed  it.  It  was  the  offspring 
of  despair  in  more  senses  than  one,  but  very  specially 
of  political  despair.  When  public  life  offered  no 
opportunities,  what  could  a  thoughtful  man  do  but 
retire  within  himself,  and  concentrate  his  energies 
on  the  discipline  of  his  own  spirit?  And  yet  the 
same  circumstances  which  brought  about  this  con- 
traction of  interest  led  also  to  a  great  expansion. 
If  the  glory  of  Greece  had  vanished,  humanity  re- 
mained ;  in  place  of  the  city,  the  philosopher  had 
the  wide  world  as  a  home  for  his  soul.  And  so  it 

1  Lightfoot  on  Philippians,  p.  272. 


106  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

came  to  pass  that  the  system  of  thought  which  most 
worthily  met  the  need  of  the  time  was  cosmopolitan 
in  spirit  as  well  as  individualistic.  The  Stoic,  while 
intensely  conscious  of  himself  as  a  moral  personality, 
was  also  not  less  conscious  of  belonging  to  a  great 
human  brotherhood.  It  has  been  reckoned  among 
the  contradictions  of  Stoicism  that,  'with  the  hardest 
and  most  uncompromising  isolation  of  the  individual, 
it  proclaims  the  most  expansive  view  of  his  relations 
to  all  around.'1  In  reality,  however,  these  two  con- 
trasted qualities  are  but  complementary  aspects  of 
the  same  fundamental  point  of  view.  The  ethical 
is  universal ;  the  ethical  individual  is  but  a  particular 
embodiment  of  that  which  constitutes  the  essential 
element  common  to  humanity.  The  same  combina- 
tion of  individualism  with  universalism  appears  in  the 
later  prophetic  literature  of  Israel  under  similar  out- 
ward circumstances,  national  misfortune  opening  the 
eyes  of  Hebrew  seers  and  Greek  sages  alike  to  the  inner 
world  of  the  soul  and  the  outer  world  of  mankind. 

Stoicism  was  not  the  only  philosophy  in  Greece 
at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  before  the 
Christian  era.  Philosophic  activity  in  the  post- 
Aristotelian  period  gave  rise  to  three  rival  schools — 
that  of  the  Stoics,  that  of  the  Epicureans,  and  that 
of  the  Sceptics.  All  three  had  the  same  fundamental 
characteristic  of  subjectivity,  retirement  within  the 
self,  and  the  same  general  temper  of  self-sufficiency, 

1  Bishop  Lightfoot  on  Philippians,  p.  296. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  107 

or  independence  of  outward  things.  The  two  first- 
named  schools,  to  confine  our  attention  to  them, 
differed  in  their  conception  of  the  chief  good.  The 
Stoics  placed  it  in  virtue,  the  Epicureans  in  free- 
dom from  disagreeable  feelings,  or,  in  one  word,  in 
Pleasure.  The  mere  co-existence  of  a  school  having 
'pleasure'  for  its  watchword  lends  added  emphasis 
and  significance  to  the  Stoic  position.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  judge  severely  the  philosophers  of  the 
garden,  and  to  impute  to  them  all  the  abuses  to 
which  their  leading  tenet  too  easily  gave  rise. 
Epicurus  did  not  undervalue  virtue;  he  maintained 
that  there  could  be  no  true  pleasure  dissociated 
from  virtue.  Seneca  states  the  point  at  issue  between 
him  and  the  masters  of  the  porch  in  these  terms, 
'whether  virtue  be  the  cause  of  the  highest  good, 
or  itself  the  highest  good.'1  With  the  Stoics  he 
espouses  the  latter  alternative,  and  repudiates  with 
indignation  not  merely  the  placing  of  virtue  under 
pleasure,  as  a  lower  category  and  mere  means  to 
pleasure  as  an  end,  but  the  comparing  of  virtue 
with  pleasure  at  all.  '  Virtue,'  he  says,  '  is  the 
despiser  and  enemy  of  pleasure ;  leaping  away  as 
far  as  possible  from  it,  it  is  more  at  home  with 
labour  and  pain  than  with  that  effeminate  good.'2 
The  Roman  representative  of  Stoicism  may  be 
accepted  as  a  true  interpreter  of  the  respective 
attitudes  of  the  two  opposed  systems.  Taking  them 

1  De  BeneficiiS)  lib.  IV.  cap.  ii.  2  Eodem  loco. 


io8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

at  his  estimate,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  the  Stoic, 
whatever  his  defects,  has  the  nobler  bearing.  Much 
depends  on  what  you  put  first.  It  is  a  great  thing 
to  say :  virtue,  duty,  is  first ;  especially  when  you 
know  that  others  are  saying  something  very  different. 
Then  your  doctrine  means :  virtue  first,  all  else, 
whatever  is  comprehended  under  enjoyment,  second  ; 
virtue  first  and  at  all  hazards,  be  the  consequences 
what  they  may  ;  pleasure  or  pain,  it  is  all  one.  This 
is  a  heroic  programme,  and  the  man  who  is  able 
to  carry  it  out  will  certainly  live  to  better  purpose 
than  the  man  whose  programme  is :  enjoyment  the 
summum  bonum,  but  enjoyment  obtained  on  the 
most  rational  and  virtuous  methods  possible. 

The  Stoic,  while  sternly  opposed  to  making  plea- 
sure the  chief  good,  did  not  refuse  it  a  place,  under 
any  form,  in  human  experience.  He  held,  however, 
that  the  only  pleasure  or  happiness  worth  having 
was  that  connected  with  right  conduct.  Virtue,  in 
his  view,  was  its  own  reward,  and  vice  its  own 
penalty.  Virtue  is  self-sufficient ;  nothing  else  is 
needed  to  make  a  wise  man  happy.  This  doctrine 
makes  the  wise  man  entirely  independent  of  every- 
thing outside  his  own  will.  The  good  man  is 
satisfied  from  himself,  and  perfectly  free  from  all 
dependence  on  outward  good.  Outward  goods,  so- 
called,  are  really  things  indifferent.  There  is  nothing 
good  but  the  absolute  good,  a  good  will ;  nothing 
evil  but  the  absolute  evil,  an  evil  will.  Health, 


THE  STOICS :  PROVIDENCE  109 

riches,  honour,  life,  however  much  valued  by  ordinary 
men,  fall  under  the  category  of  the  indifferent,  for 
every  one  who  knows  the  secret  of  the  blessed  life.1 
This  view  of  outward  good  kills  passion.  The 
passions  are  the  result  of  wrong  estimates  of  external 
good  and  evil.  From  the  irrational  estimate  of 
present  good  arises  the  passion  of  pleasurable 
feeling,  of  future  good  that  of  desire  ;  out  of  a  false 
conception  of  present  evil  comes  sorrow,  and  of 
future  evil,  fear.2  The  wise  man,  subject  to  no 
illusions,  is  passionless.  He  feels  pain,  but,  not 
regarding  it  as  an  evil,  he  suffers  neither  torment 
nor  fear;  he  may  be  despised  and  evil-treated,  but 
he  cannot  be  disgraced ;  he  is  without  vanity,  be- 
cause honour  and  shame  touch  him  not ;  he  is  not 
subject  to  the  passion  of  anger,  nor  does  he  need 
this  irrational  affection  as  an  aid  to  valour ;  he  is 
even  devoid  of  sympathy,  for  why  should  he  pity 
others  for  experiences  which  are  matters  of  indiffer- 
ence to  himself?3 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  Stoicism  than 
this  doctrine  of  apathy  as  the  distinctive  mood  of 
wisdom.  Mr.  Huxley  tells  us  that  he  finds  it 
difficult  to  discover  any  very  great  difference  between 

1  Zeno  reckoned  among  the  &8id<f>opa  life,  death,  honour,  dishonour, 
pain,  pleasure,  riches,  poverty,  disease,  health,  and  the  like.      Vide 
Stobseus,  Eclogce,  vol.  ii.  92. 

2  The  Stoics,  with  Zeno  at  their  head,  reckoned  desire,  fear,  pain, 
and  pleasure  the  four  chief  passions.      Vide  Stobaeus,  Ecloga^  ii.  166. 

3  £7<&  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griecheit,  iii.  pp.  216,  217,  where 
vouchers  for  these  details  are  given. 


no  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  Apatheia  of  the  Stoics  and  the  Nirvana  of 
Buddhists.1  The  one  does  readily  suggest  the  other 
to  our  minds,  and  the  two  words  do  denote  states 
of  soul  essentially  the  same.  But  the  calm  retreat 
of  passionless  peace  is  reached  by  different  paths 
in  the  two  systems.  It  is  a  case  of  extremes  meet- 
ing, a  common  result  arrived  at  by  entirely  opposite 
interpretations  of  life,  that  of  the  Buddhist  being 
pessimistic,  while  that  of  the  Stoic  was  optimistic. 
Life  is  full  of  misery,  said  the  Buddhist ;  from  birth 
to  death  human  existence  is  one  long  unbroken 
experience  of  sorrow  and  vexation  of  spirit,  there- 
fore extinguish  desire  and  so  escape  finally  and  for 
ever  from  pain.  The  so-called  ills  of  life,  said  the 
Stoic,  do  not  deserve  the  name ;  the  so-called  goods 
of  life  are  no  better  entitled  to  the  designation: 
treat  all  alike  with  disdain  and  so  possess  your  soul 
in  serenity.  The  relation  of  the  two  systems  to 
objects  of  desire  is  diverse.  Buddhism  is  ascetic, 
ever  engaged  in  the  work  of  extirpating  desire. 
Stoicism  finds  its  inner  satisfaction  'in  ignoring  not 
in  mortifying  desires.'  The  Stoic's  attitude  is  '  non- 
chalance, the  charter  of  his  self-sufficiency.'2  The 
diversity  in  temper  goes  along  with  a  corresponding 
diversity  of  view  in  regard  to  the  universe  at  large. 
The  Buddhist  deemed  the  existence  of  the  world, 

1  Evolution  and  Ethics^  p.  76. 

*   Vide  Kendall's  translation  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus  to  Him- 
self, introduction,  p.  xlii.  (1898). 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  in 

as  of  the  individual  man,  an  evil.  As  a  man  is 
born  because  he  has  done  wrong  in  a  previous  state 
of  existence,  so  the  world  exists  to  afford  scope  for 
the  law  of  moral  retribution  displaying  itself  in  the 
apportionment  of  rewards  and  penalties.  The  Stoic, 
on  the  other  hand,  took  an  optimistic  view  of  the 
world.  He  believed  in  the  rationality  of  the  uni- 
verse. Therefore  he  defined  virtue  alternatively  as 
living  according  to  our  own  reason,  or  as  living  in 
accordance  with  the  nature  of  things,  in  harmony 
with  the  laws  of  the  cosmos.  The  Buddhist  view 
of  birth  and  death  as  evils,  and  penalties  of  sin, 
would  never  enter  his  mind,  or  seem  other  than 
an  absurdity  if  suggested  by  another  person.  He 
would  have  said :  birth  and  death  both  belong  to 
the  universal  order,  therefore  they  are  not  evil.  The 
natural  order  was  to  be  accepted  loyally,  without 
demur.  The  will  of  nature,  said  Epictetus,  can  be 
learned  from  what  is  common  to  all.  How  do  we 
take  the  death  of  another  man's  wife  or  child  ?  We 
say  it  is  human.  Say  the  same  as  to  your  own.1 
Faith  in  nature,  with  frank  submission  to  its  appoint- 
ments, was  part  of  the  piety  of  Stoicism. 

This  faith,  as  held  by  the  Stoics,  was  associated 
with  and  buttressed  by  a  physico-theological  system 
of  thought.  Though  before  all  things  practical, 
ethical  philosophers,  they  had  their  science  of  nature, 
which  was  at  the  same  time  their  theology.  Their 

1  Enchiridion^  cxxxiii. 


Hi  ?HE  MORAL  0&t)ER  OF  ±HE  WORLD 

physics  were  not  original,  being  to  a  very  large 
extent  simply  an  appropriation  of  the  opinions  of 
the  pre-Socratic  philosopher  Heraclitus,  who  taught 
that  fire,  or  aether,  was  the  original  substance  of  the 
universe,  identified  this  primaeval  fire  with  God,  to 
whom  he  ascribed  the  properties  at  once  of  matter 
and  of  mind,  and  represented  the  history  of  the 
world  as  a  gradual  transformation  of  the  primaeval 
fire  into  the  elements,  and  of  the  elements  into  the 
primaeval  fire ;  that  is,  as  consisting  in  an  endless 
alternation  of  world  -  making  and  world  -  burning. 
The  theological  aspect  of  this  cosmological  specula- 
tion is  what  chiefly  concerns  us.  In  the  hands  of 
the  Stoics  the  resulting  idea  of  God  is  a  strange 
mixture  of  Materialism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism. 
God,  like  all  things  that  really  exist,  is  material 
and  the  source  of  all  matter.  He  is  one  with  the 
world  which  is  evolved  out  of  His  essence,  as  in 
the  theory  of  Spinoza  ;  God  and  Nature  are  the  same 
thing  under  different  aspects.  Yet,  unlike  Spinoza, 
the  Stoics  introduced  into  their  idea  of  God  theistic 
elements  reminding  us  of  the  characteristic  concep- 
tions of  Socrates,  who  regarded  the  world  teleo- 
logically,  plied  the  argument  from  design  for  the 
existence  of  a  good  God,  and  asserted  the  reality 
of  a  benignant  providential  order,  having  man  for 
the  special  object  of  its  care.  In  these  respects  the 
Stoics  were  disciples  of  Socrates,  as  in  their  physics 
they  were  followers  of  Heraclitus. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  113 

Accustomed  as  we,  in  modern  times,  are  to  sharply 
defined  contrasts  between  materialistic,  pantheistic, 
and  theistic  theories,  we  are  apt  to  wonder  how  such 
heterogeneous  elements  could  ever  have  been  brought 
together  in  even  the  crudest  attempt  to  form  an  idea 
of  God.  Unless  we  be  on  our  guard  we  may  draw 
from  the  materialism  of  the  Stoics  very  mistaken 
and  prejudicial  inferences  as  to  their  view  of  Deity, 
confounding  them  with  those  who  cherish  a  purely 
mechanical  idea  of  the  universe  and  have  no  faith 
in  the  exceptional  significance  of  man  arising  out 
of  his  spiritual  nature ;  whereas,  in  truth,  as  to  these 
vital  questions  their  creed  was  the  same  as  that  held 
by  modern  theists.  The  two  forms  of  materialism, 
as  has  been  pointed  out  by  a  French  writer  on 
Stoicism,  are  not  only  distinct,  but  of  opposite 
tendency.  '  While  the  materialism  of  our  day 
wishes  to  recognise  the  existence  of  the  corporeal 
and  sensible  only,  to  get  rid  for  ever  of  the  ideal 
realities  and  inaccessible  essences,  the  physics  of 
the  Stoics  made  everything  material  in  fear  lest 
the  spiritual  realities  should  vanish.  The  modern 
materialist  says :  "  All  is  body,  therefore  thought  is 
nothing  but  a  mode  of  body."  The  Stoic  said: 
"  All  is  body,  and  thought  being  corporeal  is  a 
substance,  more  subtle  without  doubt,  but  as  real 
as  are  the  objects  our  senses  perceive."  It  is 
not  to  withdraw  the  world  from  the  watchful 
authority  of  a  sovereign  intelligence,  but  rather  to 

FT 


H4  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

give  to  that  supreme  reason  efficacious  power  every- 
where present  that  the  Stoics  conceived  God  as 
co-extensive  with  the  universe.'1 

We  must  take  ancient  thought  about  God  as  we 
find  it,  looking  indulgently  on  the  materialistic  dross, 
and  giving  full  value  to  the  theistic  gold.  If  we 
keep  in  view  the  Semitic  origin  of  the  founders  of 
Stoicism,  we  shall  remember  that  speculative  con- 
sistency was  not  to  be  expected  of  them,  and  that 
ethical  wisdom  was  more  in  their  line  than  cosmo- 
logical  theory.  It  is  difficult  to  say  in  what  precise 
relation  such  theory  as  they  did  promulgate  stood 
to  the  ethical  doctrines  which  constitute  the  chief 
ground  of  their  claim  to  serious  consideration  at  this 
date.  Did  the  ethical  system,  first  formulated,  create 
a  desire  for  a  congruous  and  confirmatory  theory  of 
the  universe,  or  did  the  masters  of  the  school  bring 
to  their  ethical  studies  such  a  theory  cut-and-dried, 
and  always  at  hand  to  give  direction  to  thought  in 
the  answering  of  puzzling  questions?  Were  ethical 
problems  first  solved  and  then  God  conceived  in 
harmony  with  the  solutions,  or  was  the  idea  of  God 
first  fixed,  then  employed  to  control  moral  judg- 
ments? The  question  has  special  interest  in 
reference  to  the  Stoic  doctrine  concerning  things 
indifferent.  That  doctrine  seems  a  paradox,  and  it 
is  natural  to  ask,  Would  the  men  who  promulgated 

1  F.  Ogereau,  Essai  sur  le  Systhne  Philosophique  des  Stoicitns,  p. 
297. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  115 

it  have  adopted  so  extreme  a  position  as  that  pain, 
disease,  privation,  dishonour,  are  not  evils,  unless 
they  had  been  required  to  do  so  by  their  theological 
creed  ?  Was  it  not  a  case  of  a  priori  reasoning  ? 
'  The  soul  of  the  world  is  just ;  the  world  in  all  its 
arrangements  is  rational,  because  the  work  of  a 
Supreme  Reason.  The  Providence  of  God,  like  God 
Himself,  must  be  perfect ;  therefore  it  must  ever  be 
well  with  the  good  ;  therefore  human  happiness  must 
depend  on  the  state  of  the  soul,  not  on  outward 
experiences,  which,  whether  pleasant  or  the  reverse, 
are  to  be  regarded  as  of  no  account.'  That  they 
argued  thus  is  not  inconceivable.  But  it  is  against 
this  view  that  in  their  doctrine  of  the  indifferent  the 
Stoics  were  not  original  any  more  than  in  their 
materialistic  physics,  or  in  their  teleological  concep- 
tion of  the  world.  In  this,  as  in  some  other  im- 
portant respects,  they  were  disciples  of  the  Cynics. 
Speaking  generally,  the  Stoics  were  original  in  the 
spirit  rather  than  in  the  matter  of  their  teaching. 
They  borrowed  freely  from  all  preceding  schools, 
and  blended  the  separate  contributions  into  a 
harmonious  system  under  the  inspiration  of  their 
characteristic  moral  enthusiasm.  This  fervour  saved 
them  from  being  pure  eclectics,  and  converted  what 
might  otherwise  have  been  a  mere  patchwork  o 
opinions  into  a  living  organism  of  thought,  in  which 
all  parts  of  the  system  acted  and  reacted  on  each 
other.  When  the  body  of  Stoical  doctrine  is  thus 


n6  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

conceived,  the  question  above  formulated  is  super- 
seded. It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  exclusive  action 
of  the  ethics  on  the  theology,  or  of  the  theology  on 
the  ethics.  Each  in  turn  influenced  the  other.  Be- 
lief in  a  benignant  Providence  confirmed  the  doctrine 
of  the  adiaphora>  and  this  doctrine  made  that  beliei 
easier. 

Assuming  that  such  a  relation  of  interaction 
existed  between  the  doctrines  of  Providence  and  of 
things  indifferent  in  the  minds  of  the  Stoical  teachers, 
we  may  regard  them  as  making  an  important  con- 
tribution to  the  solution  of  the  problem,  How  is  the 
providential  order  to  be  justified  in  view  of  the  facts 
of  human  experience  ?  It  is  an  anticipation  of  what 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  calls  the  Christian  '  method  of 
inwardness';  the  method,  that  is  to  say,  of  seeking 
happiness  within,  in  the  state  of  the  heart,  rather 
than  without  in  the  state  of  fortune.  The  Stoics 
taught :  It  must  always  be  well  with  the  good  man ; 
his  felicity  lies  in  a  well-ordered  mind,  which  is  life 
and  peace.  The  outward  ills  which  befall  him  are 
of  little  account ;  at  the  worst,  they  are  light,  easily 
tolerable  afflictions.  This  is  obviously  a  decided 
advance  upon  the  Old  Testament  view,  whether  we 
have  regard  to  the  more  ancient  theory  championed 
by  Eliphaz  in  the  Book  of  Job,  according  to  which 
outward  lot  and  conduct  uniformly  correspond — no 
innocent  person  perishing— or  to  the  modified  con- 
ceptions of  prophets  like  Jeremiah,  which  recognised 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  117 

suffering  on  the  part  of  the  righteous  as  a  fact,  but 
as  a  fact  full  of  mystery  and  furnishing  ground  for 
surprise  and  complaint.1  It  is  equally  an  advance 
on  the  ideas  of  the  elder  Greek  tragedians,  ^Eschylus 
and  Sophocles,  which  correspond  respectively  to 
those  of  Eliphaz  and  Jeremiah.  It  falls  short,  on 
the  other  hand,  of  the  lofty  thought  enunciated  in 
the  oracles  of  the  second  Isaiah,  and  re-echoed  by 
Euripides,  that  the  sufferings  of  the  good  are  not  a 
dismal  fate  involuntarily  endured,  but  the  free  self- 
sacrifice  of  love  cheerfully  offered  for  the  benefit  of 
others.2  Stoicism  had  not  humanity  enough  to  rise 
to  such  a  conception.  Even  when  recognising  the 
existence  of  such  instances  of  heroism,  it  would  look 
rather  to  the  benefit  accruing  to  the  hero  himself 
than  to  that  accruing  to  others.  In  discoursing  on 
the  benefits  derivable  from  all  external  ills,  even 
death,  Epictetus  uses  as  an  illustration  the  story 
of  Menoekeus,  on  which  he  makes  this  comment : 
'Think  you,  Mencekeus  reaped  little  benefit  when 
he  devoted  himself  to  death  ?  Did  he  not  preserve 
his  piety  towards  his  country,  his  magnanimity,  his 
fidelity,  his  generosity?  Had  he  preferred  to  live 
would  he  not  have  lost  all  these,  and  acquired  in- 
stead the  opposite  vices — cowardice,  meanspiritcd- 
ness,  lack  of  patriotism,  ignoble  love  of  life  ? '  3  The 
point  made  is,  in  its  own  place,  not  unimportant.  It 

1  Vide  Lectures  VI.  and  VII.  2   Vide  Lecture  III. 

*  Dissertationes,  Book  iii.  c.  20,  I. 


n8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

is  something  to  be  able  to  say  that  outward  ill,  so 
far  from  robbing  the  good  of  happiness,  may  even 
promote  the  increase  of  that  happiness  by  strength- 
ening the  virtue  which  is  the  sole  fountain  of  all  true 
felicity.  But  when  that  alone  is  said  in  connection 
with  instances  of  self-sacrifice,  a  lesson  is  missed 
of  far  greater  importance  for  the  vindication  of  the 
providential  order  than  the  merely  homeward-bound 
view  of  affliction  as  useful  to  the  individual  sufferer. 

The  method  of  inwardness,  as  pursued  by  the 
Stoics,  is  open  to  the  objection  that  it  makes  the 
way  to  peace  too  much  of  a  short  cut.  They 
minimised  unduly  the  outward  ills  of  life.  It  sounds 
very  philosophic  to  say  :  To  the  good  no  real  evil  can 
happen,  as  to  the  evil  no  real  good  ;  and  to  ply  the 
sorrow-laden  with  such  admonitions  as  these:  'A 
son  has  died  ;  it  depends  not  on  the  will  of  man, 
therefore  it  is  not  an  evil.  Caesar  has  condemned 
you — an  involuntary  event,  therefore  not  evil ;  you 
have  been  led  to  prison — so  be  it.  Jove  has  done  all 
these  things  well,  because  he  has  made  you  able  to 
bear  such  things,  made  you  magnanimous,  provided 
that  no  real  evil  should  be  in  such  experiences,  made 
it  possible  for  you  to  be  happy  in  spite  of  such 
experiences.'1  Men  within  the  school  might  make 
themselves  believe  that  such  considerations  were  con- 
clusive, but  those  outside  could  not  be  expected  to 
acquiesce.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  ask  men  to  accept 

1  Epictetus,  Dissertationes,  iii.  8. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  119 

bereavement,  condemnation  by  a  judicial  tribunal, 
imprisonment,  as  matters  of  indifference,  because 
involuntary  so  far  as  the  sufferer  is  concerned.  Men 
naturally  wish  to  know  how  such  events  are  to  be 
construed  with  reference  to  the  will  of  the  Supreme. 
And  when  it  is  considered  that  the  masters  of  the 
school  were  wont  to  point  to  suicide  as  a  door  of 
escape  always  open  for  the  unhappy,  it  becomes 
doubtful  if  even  they  were  satisfied  with  their  own 
philosophy.  Why  fly  from  life  if  outward  ill  be 
illusory?  If  there  be  a  benignant  Providence  at 
work  in  human  experience,  why  not  live  on  through 
all  possible  experience,  rejoicing  evermore,  praying 
without  ceasing,  in  everything  giving  thanks? 

Dissatisfaction  with  the  Stoic  justification  of 
Providence  finds  forcible  expression  in  Cicero's  De 
Natura  Deorum,  where,  after  the  creed  of  the  porch 
has  been  sympathetically  expounded  by  one  inter- 
locutor, Balbus,  another,  Cotta,  is  introduced  sharply 
criticising  it.  Among  the  trains  of  reflection  put 
into  Cotta's  mouth  the  following  has  a  prominent 
place.  If  the  gods  really  care  for  the  human  race 
they  ought  to  make  all  men  good  ;  at  least  they 
ought  to  look  after  the  interest  of  those  who  are 
good.  But  do  they?  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  there 
are  many  instances  of  good  men  suffering  undeserved 
calamity,  and  of  bad  men  prospering?  The  argu- 
ment winds  up  with  the  remark  :  *  Time  would  fail  if 
I  wished  to  recount  the  examples  of  good  men  over- 


120  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

taken  with  bad  fortune  and  of  evil  men  favoured 
with  good  fortune.'  Of  course  the  case  of  Socrates 
receives  prominent  mention.  'What,'  asks  the 
sceptic,  *  shall  I  say  of  Socrates,  whose  death,  as  I 
read,  always  brings  the  tears  into  my  eyes?  Surely 
if  the  gods  pay  any  attention  to  human  affairs  they 
exercise  very  little  discrimination.'1 

Here  is  the  age-long  problem  of  the  sufferings  of 
the  righteous  stated,  if  not  solved  in  the  pages  of  the 
philosophic  Roman  orator.  The  early  Stoics,  far 
from  solving  the  problem,  hardly  even  stated  it,  their 
exaggerated  doctrine  concerning  the  indifference  of 
outward  ill  preventing  them.  What  grand  possi- 
bilities of  sublime  wrestling  with  an  apparently  un- 
fathomable mystery  they  thereby  missed  we  know 
from  the  Book  of  Job.  Suppose  Zeno,  Cleanthes, 
and  Chrysippus  had  occupied  the  place  of  Eliphaz, 
Bildad,  and  Zophar,  what  would  they  have  said  to 
the  sufferer?  Something  like  this  :  '  We  hear,  friend, 
that  the  Sabaeans  have  stolen  your  oxen  and  asses, 
and  that  your  flocks  of  sheep  have  been  destroyed 
by  lightning ;  vex  not  yourself,  these  are  merely 
outward  events  independent  of  your  will,  therefore 
no  evils,  to  be  treated  as  if  they  had  not  happened 
by  a  wise  man.  We  hear,  moreover,  that  your  sons 
and  daughters  have  been  suddenly  killed,  amid  their 
festivities,  by  a  tornado.  It  is  a  somewhat  unusual 
and  startling  event ;  still,  such  things  do  occur  now 

1  Lib.  iii.  cc.  32,  33. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  121 

and  then,  and  form  part  of  the  order  of  nature ;  they 
happen  indifferently  to  all,  irrespective  of  character ; 
and  when  they  happen  they  are  purely  external 
events,  therefore  indifferent.  For  the  rest :  consider 
that  your  children  have  been  restored  to  the  peace  of 
the  pre-natal  condition,  and  say  to  yourself:  "When 
I  begot  them  I  knew  that  they  would  have  to  die."1 
We  not  only  have  heard,  we  see,  that  you  are  afflicted 
in  your  own  person  with  a  loathsome  disease,  wasting 
and  painful.  This  is  harder  to  bear  than  all  the 
other  ills,  but  the  apathetic  wise  man  is  equal  to  the 
task.  Consider,  Job  :  Pain  has  its  seat  in  the  body, 
why  should  it  disturb  the  peace  of  your  mind?' 
What  would  the  man  of  Uz  have  thought  of  such 
consolations?  Would  they  have  appeared  to  him  an 
improvement  on  the  solemn  homilies  in  vindication 
of  divine  justice  addressed  to  him  by  the  friends  who 
had  come  to  condole  with  him  ?  Which  is  the  more 
trying  to  patience — to  be  told  :  '  You  suffer  much, 
therefore  you  must  be  a  very  bad  man ' ;  or  to  be 
told :  *  You  are,  we  are  sure,  a  very  good  man,  but 
you  know  you  do  not  really  suffer?'  Perhaps  there 
is  not  much  to  choose  between  them.  Let  us  be 
thankful  that  the  author  of  Job  kept  aloof  from  the 
pedantries  alike  of  Eliphaz  and  of  Zeno ;  that  he 
conceived  of  his  hero  as  at  once  an  exceptionally 
good  man  and  an  exceptionally  miserable  man.  For 

1  Ego  quum  genui,  turn  moriturum  scivi.     Seneca,  in  Ad  Polybium 
ConsolattO)  cxxx. 


122  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

by  this  sharp  antithesis  between  conduct  and  lot 
the  problem  of  Providence  in  the  individual  life  was 
adequately  stated,  and  a  need  for  earnest  discussion 
created  ;  and  if,  after  all  that  was  said  in  the  debate, 
the  problem  remained  unsolved,  it  was  at  least  kept 
open  for  other  attempts  by  the  ruthless  sweeping 
away  of  premature  superficial  solutions.  The  Stoic 
solution  was  probably  not  before  the  writer's  mind. 
Had  it  been,  we  can  imagine  what  his  sound  Hebrew 
sense  would  have  had  to  say  about  it :  '  Destitution, 
sorrow,  pain,  are  not  to  be  charmed  away  by  fine 
phrases.  They  are  grim  realities.  They  happen  to 
men  under  the  Providence  of  God,  and  some  account 
of  them  must  be  given  if  faith  in  the  justice  and 
goodness  of  God  is  not  to  make  shipwreck.' 

The  later  Stoics  did  make  some  attempt  to  supply 
a  rationale  of  the  sufferings  of  the  good,  on  the 
assumption  that  these  were  real.  Epictetus  offered 
as  his  contribution  the  idea  that  tribulation  promotes 
the  development  of  heroic  character.  In  an  apologetic 
discourse  on  Providence  he  asks :  *  What  sort  of  a 
man  would  Hercules  have  been  had  there  not  been 
lions  and  hydras  and  stags  and  wild  boars  and 
unrighteous  savage  men  to  fight  with,  and  drive  out 
of  the  world  ?  What  would  he  have  been  doing,  had 
not  such  beings  existed?  Spending  his  whole  life 
nodding  in  luxury  and  idleness,  without  any  chance 
of  using  his  arms,  strength,  power  of  endurance, 
generous  disposition.'  The  moral  of  the  life  of 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  123 

Hercules  is  thus  pointed :  *  Come  then,  thou  also, 
look  at  the  powers  given  thee,  then  say  to  Jove, 
Bring  any  trial  you  please,  for,  lo!  I  have  been 
equipped  by  thee  for  beautifying  myself  by  the 
things  which  happen.'  To  such  as  are  of  a  different 
temper,  preferring  to  sit  and  groan  and  complain  in 
presence  of  difficulties,  he  addresses  the  remon- 
strance :  *  I  can  show  you  that  you  have  been  pro- 
vided with  talents  and  opportunities  for  the  exercise 
of  magnanimity  and  fortitude ;  show  me,  if  you  can, 
what  occasion  you  have  for  complaining  and  finding 
fault.'1 

In  his  treatise  De  Providentia  Seneca  presents 
some  distinctive  points  of  view.  The  aim  of  this 
work  is  not  to  treat  of  Divine  Providence  in  general, 
but  to  discuss  the  special  question,  Why,  if  the  world 
be  under  a  providential  guidance,  do  so  many  evils 
overtake  good  men?  It  abounds  in  fine  thoughts 
felicitously  expressed,  which,  for  the  most  part,  must 
here  be  left  unnoticed.  I  can  refer  only  to  what 
may  be  called  the  spectacular  aspect  under  which 
the  subject  is  prominently,  though  not  exclusively, 
presented.  Two  thoughts  fall  under  this  category. 
The  first  is  that  the  sufferings  of  the  good  are  a 
pleasing  sight  to  the  gods ;  the  second,  that  they 
make  an  important  revelation  of  character  to  the 
sufferers  themselves  and  to  their  fellow-men.  As  to 
the  former,  Seneca  remarks :  *  I  do  not  wonder  if 

1  Dissertations ,  i.  6. 


124  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

sometimes  the  gods  are  seized  with  a  desire  to  see 
great  men  struggling  with  calamity.'1  He  repre- 
sents the  gods  as,  like  generals,  placing  the  best  men 
in  the  posts  of  danger,  and  he  counsels  those  so 
placed  to  console  themselves  with  the  reflection  :  God 
has  deemed  us  worthy  to  be  employed  as  a  means 
of  ascertaining  how  much  human  nature  can  bear.2 
The  use  of  trial  for  the  revelation  of  character  to 
men  is  thus  set  forth :  You  are  a  great  man  ;  but 
how  shall  I  know,  if  fortune  give  you  no  opportunity 
of  displaying  your  virtue?  I  judge  you  miserable 
because  you  never  have  been  miserable.  You  have 
passed  through  life  without  an  adversary.  Nobody 
will  know  what  you  could  have  done,  not  even  you 
yourself.  There  is  need  of  trial  for  the  knowledge 
of  ourselves.  No  one  learns  what  he  is  good  for 
except  by  being  tried.3  You  know  the  steersman 
in  a  tempest,  the  soldier  in  battle.4  Calamity  is 
the  opportunity  of  virtue.6  Fire  proves  gold,  misery 
brave  men.6  To  other  men  the  manifestation  of  a 
heroic  spirit  conveys  a  lesson  of  endurance.  The 
suffering  hero  is  born  to  be  an  example.7 

The  general  theory  of  Providence  taught  by  the 
early  masters  of  the  school  might  have  been  satis- 

1  De  Providentia^  cap.  ii.  s  Ibid.,  cap.  iv. 

'  Ibid. ,  cap.  iv. 

4  Ibid.,  cap.  iv.  :    ' Gubernatorem  in  tempestate,   in  acie  militem 
intelligas.' 

8  Ibid.,  cap.  v.  :  '  Calami tas  virtutis  occasio  est.' 

•  Jbid.t  cap.  v.  *  lbid.t  cap.  vi. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  125 

factory  enough,  if  they  had  not  done  their  best  to 
render  it  nugatory  by  dividing  men  into  two  classes, 
one  of  which  did  not  need  God's  care,  and  the  other 
did  not  deserve  it.  There  was  no  lack  of  emphasis 
in  their  assertion  of  the  doctrine  that  God  cares  for 
men.  After  God,  they  argued,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  world  better  than  man,  and  nothing  in  man 
better  than  reason.  Therefore  God  must  have 
reason.  The  divine  reason  finds  its  proper  occupa- 
tion in  caring  for  the  world,  providing  for  its  per- 
manence, furnishing  it  with  all  things  needful,  and 
adorning  it  with  beauty ;  but  above  all  in  caring  for 
man.  The  world  was  made  for  beings  endowed  with 
reason,  gods  and  men.  The  care  of  God  for  man  is 
apparent  in  the  structure  of  his  body  and  the  endow- 
ment of  his  mind,  and  in  the  subservience  of  the 
vegetable  and  animal  creation  to  his  benefit.  Not 
to  see  the  evidence  of  divine  care,  especially  in  the 
mind  of  man,  is  to  be  devoid  of  mind.  As  for  the 
body,  it  is  enough  to  refer  to  the  hand,  with  its 
marvellous  capacity  of  art,  in  the  use  of  which  men 
can  produce  a  second  nature  in  the  nature  of  things.1 
Most  acceptable  doctrine ;  but  when  we  view  this 
richly  endowed  being  more  closely,  and  consider  the 
account  given  of  the  use  he  makes  of  his  reason,  our 
faith  in  his  being  the  object  of  divine  care  is  some- 
what shaken.  Human  beings,  we  are  told,  consist  of 

1  Vide  Cicero,  De  Natura  Dearum,  lib.  ii.,  in  which  an  account  of 
the  teaching  of  the  early  masters  on  God  and  Providence  is  given. 


126  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

two  classes :  wise  men  and  fools.  The  wise  are  those 
who  follow  the  dictates  of  reason  ;  the  fools  those 
who  disregard  these  dictates,  and  are  blindly  led  by 
false  opinion  and  passion.  The  fools,  it  appears, 
form  the  great  majority ;  almost  the  whole  mass 
indeed.  And  the  fools  are  perfect  fools.  The  wise 
men  also  are  perfectly  wise.  There  is  no  shading ; 
there  are  no  degrees  of  folly  and  wisdom.  Virtues 
and  vices  respectively  go  in  groups  ;  he  that  has  one 
virtue  or  vice  has  all,  and  each  in  perfection.  This 
idealising  way  of  viewing  character  is  not  peculiar  to 
Stoicism,  but  the  tendency  to  apply  the  category  of 
the  absolute  to  ethical  distinctions  was  never  carried 
to  greater  extravagance  than  by  the  Masters  of  the 
Porch.  It  reached  its  highest  point  of  fantastic 
idealisation  in  the  delineation  of  the  Wise  Man. 
The  Wise  Man  of  Stoic  theory  cultivates  all  the 
virtues ;  does  all  things  rightly ;  is  prophet,  poet, 
orator,  priest ;  is  perfect  in  character,  and  endowed 
with  a  felicity  not  inferior  to  that  of  the  gods ;  is 
a  free  man  and  a  king.  He  is  invulnerable,  not 
because  he  cannot  be  struck,  but  because  he  cannot 
be  injured.  Nothing  hurts  divinity;  no  arrow  can 
reach  the  sun.1  He  is  absolutely  self-reliant,  and 
totally  indifferent  to  popular  judgment.  As  the 
stars  move  in  a  contrary  direction  to  the  world,  so 
he  goes  against  the  opinion  of  all.2  He  neither  asks 

1  Seneca,  De  Constantia  Sapientis,  cap.  iv. 

2  Ibid.  cap.  xiv. 


THE  STOICS  :  PROVIDENCE  127 

nor  gives  sympathy.  In  the  proud  consciousness  of 
virtue  he  feels  no  soft  indulgence  towards  the  bad, 
but  severely  leaves  them  to  endure  the  just  penalty 
of  their  folly. 

This  man  needs  not  God's  care.  He  is  a  god 
himself.  He  is  even  superior  to  the  gods  in  some 
respects,  e.g.  in  patience.  They  are  beyond,  he  is 
above,  patience.  He  does  not  need  even  so  much  as 
to  believe  in  God.  Like  Buddha,  he  can  do  without 
gods.  The  ethics  of  Stoicism  have  no  need  for  a 
theistic  foundation  ;  they  would  suit  the  agnostic 
better  than  the  theist  The  Stoic  wise  man  is 
absolutely  self-sufficient,  and  does  not  need  to  care 
whether  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a  deity,  a  pro- 
vidence, or  a  hereafter.  He  talks  piously  about  the 
gods,  and  about  their  care  of  men  ;  but  this  is  merely 
the  accident  of  his  position,  the  tribute  he  pays  to 
the  time  in  which  he  lives.  He  might  cast  off  his 
creed  like  a  suit  of  old  garments,  and  it  would  make 
no  difference.  The  Stoic  temper  can  survive  Stoic 
theology.  The  temper  is  indeed  likely  to  survive 
the  theology,  for  it  is  apt  to  be  the  death  of  it.  That 
temper  is  much  more  hostile  to  true  faith  in  divine 
Providence  than  the  belief  in  fate,  destiny,  and  the 
inexorable  reign  of  law  which  formed  a  part  of  the 
Stoic  system  of  thought.  The  reign  of  physical  law 
in  no  way  excludes  a  providential  order  of  the  world, 
which  simply  means  that  the  world,  while  mechani- 
cally produced,  has  an  aim  to  which  the  whole 


128  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

cosmos  is  subservient  and  each  part  in  its  relation 
to  the  whole.  But  the  proud  self-sufficiency  of  the 
sage  stultifies  the  whole  theory  of  a  providential  aim 
guiding  the  mind  of  God,  by  making  man,  the  crown 
of  creation,  independent  of  God. 

The  Stoic  scorn  for  fools  tends  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. Who  can  believe  that  God  cares  for  a  race 
who,  having  received  the  gift  of  reason,  almost  with- 
out exception  make  no  use  of  it,  and  seem  incapable 
of  being  cured  of  their  folly?  The  true  disciple  of 
the  porch  did  not  believe  it.  His  maxim  was  :  '  God 
cares  for  the  great  and  neglects  the  small.'1  The 
sentiment,  as  put  into  the  mouth  of  Balbus,  the 
advocate  of  Stoicism,  by  Cicero,  means  that  divine 
favour  is  not  to  be  judged  by  outward  chances  such 
as  the  destruction  of  a  crop  by  a  storm.  We  are 
not  to  think  that  a  man  has  been  neglected  by  God 
because  such  misfortunes  befall  him,  if  he  be  endowed 
with  the  truer  and  more  enduring  riches  of  virtue. 
The  inner  treasures  are  the  great  things ;  the  outer 
goods  of  fortune  are  the  small.  But  for  the  genuine 
Stoic  the  adage  was  apt  to  bear  another  sense,  viz. 
that  God  cares  for  great  men  and  neglects  small 
men.  In  his  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  Pro- 
vidence, Balbus  maintains  that  the  gods  care  not 
only  for  the  human  race,  but  for  individual  men,  for 
men  in  the  great  divisions  of  the  earth — Europe, 

1  Magna  dii  curanf,  paroa  negligunt.— Cicero,  De  Natura  Deorum, 
lib.  ii.  cap.  IxvL 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  129 

Asia,  and  Africa ;  and  also  for  men  living  in  Rome, 
Athens,  Sparta,  and,  among  these,  for  particular  men 
named.1  But  the  men  named  are  all  more  or  less 
famous,  concerning  whom,  and  others  like  them,  it 
is  affirmed  that  they  could  never  have  been  the  men 
they  were  without  divine  aid.  There  is  no  mention, 
even  in  a  general  way,  of  insignificant  men  as  the 
objects  of  God's  care ;  no  hint  that  even  the  hairs 
of  their  heads  are  all  numbered.  The  pathos  of  the 
doctrine  of  Providence,  as  taught  by  Jesus,  is  wholly 
lacking  in  these  grandiose  demonstrations.  '  Magna 
Dii  curant,  parva  negligunt'  is  the  keynote  of  the 
Stoic's  providential  psalm  of  praise. 

Returning  to  the  wise  man  of  Stoic  imagination, 
the  question  arises,  Where  are  men  answering  to  the 
description  to  be  found  ?  The  Stoics  themselves 
were  obliged  to  admit  that  their  number  was  few ; 
but  they  ventured  to  name  Socrates,  Diogenes,  and 
Antisthenes  among  the  Greeks,  and  Cato  among  the 
Romans,  whom  the  modern  historian  Mommsen 
bluntly  calls  a  fool.2  The  wise  man  of  Stoicism  is 
in  truth  only  an  ideal.  But  he  is  none  the  less 
important  as  an  index  of  the  spirit  of  the  system. 
There  can  be  no  better  guide  to  the  genius  of  a 
religion  or  a  philosophy  than  its  moral  ideal.  The 

1  Cicero,  De  Natura  Deorum,  lib.  ii.  cap.  Ixvi.     Balbus  alludes  to 
the  fact  that  Homer  assigns  to  the  leading  heroes,  Ulysses,  Diomede, 
Agamemnon,  Achilles,  divine  companions  in  their  trials  and  dangers. 

2  Mommsen,  The  History  of  Xome,  vol.  iv.  part  ii.  p.  448 ;  English 
translation  by  Dr.  Dickson. 

I 


130  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

wise  man  of  Stoicism  is  as  vital  to  it  as  the  Buddha 
to  Buddhism,  or  the  perfect  man  who  studies  the 
law  day  and  night  to  Judaism.  The  modifications 
which  Stoicism  underwent  in  course  of  time  tended 
to  gain  for  it  wider  currency,  but  they  are  not  the 
most  reliable  indication  of  the  true  temper  of  its 
teachers.  It  is  by  the  esoteric  doctrine  of  Buddhism, 
the  law  for  the  monk,  rather  than  by  its  exoteric 
doctrine,  the  law  for  the  laity,  that  its  true  char- 
acter is  known.  In  like  manner  the  apathetic  sage, 
passionlessly  yet  passionately  following  reason,  is 
the  beau  ideal  of  Stoicism,  the  revelation  of  its 
inmost  soul.  Suppose,  now,  we  saw  the  ideal 
realised  in  a  few  rare  specimens  of  humanity,  what 
would  they  look  like?  Like  the  blasted  pines  of  the 
Wengern  Alp,  standing  near  the  summit  of  the  pass, 
leafless,  barkless,  sapless ;  chilled  to  death  by  the 
pitiless  icy  winds  of  winter  blowing  off  the  glaciers. 
Compare  this  picture  with  that  of  the  righteous  man 
of  Hebrew  poetry :  '  He  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted 
by  the  rivers  of  water,'  with  its  leaf  ever  green  and 
bringing  forth  fruit  in  its  season.1  How  poor  a 
character  the  cold,  unsympathetic  wise  man  of 
Stoicism  appears  compared  even  with  the  tender- 
hearted saint  and  sage  of  Buddhism  !  Between  the 
Stoic  wise  man  and  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels,  the 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  no  comparison  is 
possible.  Can  we  wonder  that  Stoicism,  with  all  its 
1  Psalm  L 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  131 

earnestness,  remained  an  affair  of  the  school?  No 
system  of  religious  thought  can  make  way  in  the 
world  which  has  no  place  in  its  ethical  j^eal  for  pity; 
no  gospel  for  the  weak.  The  Stoic  was  a  Greek 
Pharisee  who  thought  himself  better  than  other  men, 
and  despised  all  whom  he  deemed  his  inferiors.  He 
had  his  reward.  He  enjoyed  to  the  full  his  own 
good  opinion,  and  failed  to  win  the  trust  and  love  of 
his  fellow-men. 

In  the  foregoing  paragraph  I  have  referred  to 
modifications  of  the  Stoic  system  as  originally  con- 
structed. These  were  much  needed  in  connection 
with  three  salient  features  :  the  exaggerated  concep- 
tion of  the  wise  man,  the  doctrine  that  pain  is  no 
evil,  and  the  connected  doctrine  of  apathy.  Shading 
was  introduced  into  the  first  by  substituting,  in  the 
place  of  the  ideal  wise  man,  the  man  who,  though 
he  hath  not  attained  nor  is  already  perfect,  yet  is 
advancing  onwards  towards  the  goal.  In  connection 
with  the  second  it  was  found  necessary  to  introduce 
distinctions  among  the  things  which  rigid  theory 
had  slumped  together  as  indifferent,  and  to  divide 
these  into  three  classes — the  things  to  be  desired,  the 
things  to  be  avoided,  and  the  intermediate  class  of 
things  neither  to  be  desired  nor  to  be  avoided,  to 
which  the  title  'indifferent*  is  properly  applicable. 
In  the  first  class  were  included  such  physical  endow- 
ments as  were  favourable  to  virtue — bodily  health, 
riches,  honour,  good  descent,  and  the  like.  Finally, 


132  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  apathy  of  theory  was  toned  down  by  a  gracious 
permission  to  the  wise  to  indulge  natural  feeling  to 
a  certain  measured  extent ;  to  rejoice  in  prosperity 
and  grieve  under  bereavement,  to  commiserate  the 
unfortunate,  and  to  give  play  to  the  sentiment  of 
friendship. 

It  was,  as  might  have  been  expected  when 
Stoicism  became  naturalised  in  the  Roman  world, 
towards  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  and 
from  that  time  onwards,  that  it  underwent  this 
humanising  transformation.  The  austere  Roman 
nature  presented  a  promising  stock  whereon  to  graft 
the  philosophy  of  the  porch,  but  Roman  good  sense 
was  not  likely  to  adopt  without  qualification  the 
paradoxes  and  subtleties  of  Greek  theorists.  While 
welcoming  the  system  in  its  main  outlines,  and 
especially  in  its  characteristic  temper,  Roman 
disciples  supplied  at  the  same  time  the  needful 
corrective.  Cicero,  one  of  the  earliest  Roman  ad- 
mirers, if  not  an  abject  disciple,  of  Stoicism,  reveals 
in  his  writings  the  common  Roman  attitude.  In  the 
second  of  his  Tusculan  Questions^  having  for  its 
theme  how  to  bear  grief,  he  treats  as  a  mere  ex- 
travagance the  doctrine  of  Zeno,  that  pain  is  no 
evil.  '  Nothing  is  evil,  he  teaches,  save  what  is 
base  and  vicious.  This  is  trifling.  You  do  not  by 
saying  this  remove  what  was  troubling  me.'1 
Seneca,  coming  a  century  later,  about  the  begin- 

1   Tuscu!.  Qu<rst.t  lib.  ii.  cap.  xiu 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  133 

ning  of  our  era,1  rebukes  the  pride  of  the  Stoic  wise 
man  by  frank  confession  of  personal  moral  infirmity, 
and  by  equally  frank  proclamation  of  the  evil  bias 
of  human  nature.  c  We  have  all  sinned/  he  sadly 
owns,  *  some  gravely,  others  less  grievously ;  some 
deliberately,  others  under  impulse,  or  carried  away 
by  evil  example.  Some  of  us  have  stood  in  good 
counsels  with  little  firmness,  and  have  involuntarily 
and  reluctantly  lost  our  innocence.  We  not  only 
come  short,  but  we  will  continue  to  do  so  to  the  end 
of  life.  If  any  one  has  so  well  purged  his  mind  that 
nothing  can  any  more  disturb  and  deceive  it,  he  has 
still  come  to  innocence  through  sin/2  This  con- 
fession occurs  in  a  treatise  entitled  De  dementia, 
and  it  is  meant  to  suggest  a  motive  for  the  exercise 
of  mercy,  a  virtue  to  which  Stoics  were  not  prone. 
As  one  reads  the  penitent  acknowledgments  of  the 
Roman  courtier  he  is  reminded  of  the  Pauline  sen- 
timent :  '  Considering  thyself,  lest  thou  also  be 
tempted/8 

With  not  less  emphasis  than  Cicero,  Seneca  dis- 
sents from  the  Stoic  doctrine  concerning  pain.  '  I 
know,'  he  says, '  that  there  are  some  men  of  severe 
rather  than  brave  prudence  who  assert  that  the  wise 
man  will  not  grieve.  They  must  speak  of  what 
they  have  never  experienced,  else  fortune  would 

1  Cicero  was  born  106  B.C.,  Seneca  probably  a  few  years  before  the 
commencement  of  our  era. 

8  De  dementia^  cap.  vi.  *  Galatians  vi.  I. 


134  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

nave  shaken  out  of  them  this  proud  wisdom,  and 
driven  them  in  spite  of  themselves  to  a  confession  of 
the  truth.  Reason  demands  no  more  than  that 
grief  be  free  from  excess.'1  Some  have  doubted 
whether  Seneca  could  have  referred  in  such  un- 
sympathetic terms  to  a  sentiment  so  characteristic 
of  Stoicism,  and  have  found  in  the  passage  quoted  a 
ground  for  calling  in  question  the  authenticity  of  the 
work  in  which  it  occurs,  the  Consolatio  ad  Polybium. 
But  the  plea  for  the  legitimacy  of  grief  takes  its 
place  beside  that  for  the  exercise  of  mercy,  as  an 
appropriate  feature  of  Roman  Stoicism. 

Epictetus,  the  Phrygian,  was  of  sterner  stuff  than 
Seneca.  He  had  been  a  slave  before  he  became 
a  teacher ;  he  was  lame  and  of  a  sickly  constitution. 
This  hard  lot  had  bred  in  him  the  temper  of  an 
out-and-out  Stoic,  or  even  of  a  Cynic ;  so  that  he 
was  ready  to  accept  without  abatement  the  dogma : 
Pain  no  evil.  But  the  same  severe  experience  had 
opened  his  naturally  generous  heart  to  a  sympathy 
with  the  weak  more  akin  to  Christianity  than  to 
Stoicism.  In  his  teaching  God  is  not  the  God  of  the 
wise  only,  but  of  all,  wise  and  foolish  alike.  No 
human  being  is  an  orphan,  for  God  is  a  Father 
exercising  a  constant  care  over  all.2  On  the  ground 
of  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God  he  inculcates 
humanity  in  the  treatment  of  slaves.  To  one  who 

1  Ad  Polybium  Consolatio,  cap.  xxxvii. 
8  Pissertationes,  in.  xxiv.  I. 


THE  STOICS:   PROVIDENCE  135 

is  represented  as  asking :  '  How  can  you  put  up  with 
a  slave  who,  when  you  call  for  hot  water,  pays 
no  attention  or  brings  water  lukewarm?'  he  replies: 
'  Slave !  can  you  not  bear  with  your  own  brother 
who  takes  his  origin  from  Jove,  as  a  son  born  of  the 
same  seed  as  yourself?'1  so  giving  to  the  idea  that 
men  are  God's  offspring,  in  the  hymn  of  Cleanthes, 
a  breadth  of  application  which  its  author  in  all  pro- 
bability did  not  dream  of. 

In  two  respects  the  later  Roman  Stoicism  was  no 
improvement  on  the  earlier,  viz. :  the  practice  of 
suicide  and  the  view  entertained  of  the  future  life. 
The  former  is  one  of  the  most  perplexing  features  of 
the  system.  It  is  hard  to  reconcile  with  Stoic  prin- 
ciples either  the  wish  or  the  temptation  to  put  an  end 
to  one's  life.  The  Stoic  had  unbounded  faith  in  the 
will  of  the  universe,  which  for  him  was  revealed  in 
events.  With  Epictetus  he  would  say:  'Desire  nothing 
to  happen  as  you  wish,  but  wish  things  to  happen  as 
they  do';2  and  with  Marcus  Aurelius  :  *  Whatever  is 
agreeable  to  thee,  O  universe,  is  agreeable  to  me; 
nothing  is  early  or  late  for  me  that  is  seasonable  for 
you.'3  Is  it  not  a  corollary  from  this  that  one 
should  be  content  to  let  life  last  as  long  as  it  can, 
viewing  the  mere  physical  power  to  last  as  an  indica- 
tion of  God's  will  ?  Was  it  not  an  illogical  as  well 
as  an  unworthy  proceeding  on  the  part  of  Zeno  and 

1  DissertationtSy  I.  xiii.  I.  2  Enchiridion,  cap.  viii. 

*  Meditationes,  Book  iv.  cap.  xxiii. 


136  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Cleanthes  to  inaugurate  the  bad  fashion  of  taking 
the  work  of  putting  a  period  to  their  lives  out  of  the 
hands  of  nature?  Then  what  need  or  temptation 
to  pursue  this  self-willed  course  could  arise  for  one 
who  believed  that  disease  and  pain  and  all  things 
that  tend  to  produce  life-weariness  are  no  real  evils  ? 
Yet  the  legitimacy  of  suicide  was  maintained  by 
all  Stoics,  not  excepting  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  the 
Emperor  Aurelius.  '  If  you  do  not  wish  to  fight/ 
said  Seneca,  'you  can  flee;  God  hath  made  nothing 
easier  than  to  die.'1  'God  hath  opened  the  door,' 
said  Epictetus  ;  '  when  things  do  not  please  you,  go 
out  and  do  not  complain.'2  '  If  the  room  smokes  I 
leave  it/3  was  the  homely  figure  under  which  the 
Stoic  ruler  of  Rome  still  more  cynically  expressed 
the  right  of  men  to  renounce  life  when  they  were 
tired  of  it. 

That  Stoicism  gave  an  uncertain  sound  on  the 
future  life  is  not  surprising.  A  firm,  consistent 
doctrine  on  that  subject  could  hardly  be  expected 
from  a  philosophy  whose  theory  of  the  universe 
was  a  heterogeneous  combination  of  materialism, 
pantheism,  and  theism.  Even  the  founders  of  the 
school  do  not  seem  to  have  been  of  one  mind 
on  the  subject.  Zeno  thought  that  the  souls 
of  men  might  survive  death  and  maintain  their 
separate  existence  till  the  general  conflagration 

1  De  Providentia,  cap.  vi.  2  Dissertationes>  lib.  iii.  cap.  viii 

*  McdilationeSi  v.  29. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  137 

when,  with  the  rest  of  the  universe,  they  would 
be  absorbed  into  the  primaeval  fire.  Chrysippus 
restricted  the  honour  of  such  a  survival  to  the  wise. 
The  Stoics  of  the  Roman  period  seem  to  be  in  doubt 
whether,  even  in  the  case  of  the  wise,  death  will  not 
mean  final  extinction  of  being.  To  the  question, 
How  can  the  gods  suffer  good  men  to  be  extin- 
guished at  death  ?  Marcus  Aurelius  replies  :  '  If  it  be 
so  then  it  is  right,  if  it  be  not  right  then  the  gods 
have  ordered  it  otherwise.'1  To  a  mother  grieving 
over  the  loss  of  a  beloved  son,  all  the  consolation 
Seneca  has  to  offer  is  such  as  can  be  extracted  from 
reflections  like  these :  '  Death  is  the  solution  and  end 
of  all  griefs,  and  restores  us  to  the  tranquillity  in 
which  we  reposed  before  we  were  born.  Death  is 
neither  good  nor  evil.  That  can  be  good  or  evil 
which  is  something,  but  that  which  is  itself  nothing 
and  reduces  all  things  to  nothing,  delivers  us  to  no 
fortune.'2 

But  let  our  last  word  concerning  the  Stoics  be  one 
of  appreciation.  They  have  added  to  the  spiritual 
treasures  of  the  human  race  a  devout,  religious 
tone  and  a  serviceable  moral  temper.  The  religious 
tone  finds  characteristic  expression  in  the  hymn  of 
Cleanthes,  in  some  utterances  of  Epictetus,  and  in 
the  general  strain  of  the  Meditations  of  Aurelius. 

1  Meditationes,  xii.  5. 

8  Ad  Marciam  Consolatio,  cap.  xix.  But  there  are  passages  to  a 
different  effect  in  SenecaVwritings. 


138  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

The  keynote  of  Stoic  piety  is  struck  in  the  open- 
ing sentences  of  the  hymn.  'Thee  it  is  lawful 
for  all  mortals  to  address.  For  we  are  thy 
offspring,  and  alone  of  living  creatures  possess  a 
voice  which  is  the  image  of  reason.  Therefore  I 
will  for  ever  sing  thee  and  celebrate  thy  power.'1 
The  sayings  of  Epictetus  breathe  throughout  the 
spirit  of  childlike  trust  in  God,  of  thankfulness  for 
the  blessings  of  Providence,  and  of  cheerful  sub- 
mission to  the  divine  will.  The  prevailing  mood 
finds  culminating  utterance  in  the  closing  sentences 
of  one  of  his  discourses  on  the  providential  order. 
1  What  then,  since  most  of  you  are  blind,  were  it  not 
needful  that  some  one  should  perform  this  function 
(of  praise),  and  on  behalf  of  all  sing  a  hymn  to  God  ? 
For,  what  else  am  I,  an  old  man,  good  for  except  to 
praise  God?  If  I  were  a  nightingale,  I  should  do 
the  part  of  a  nightingale,  if  a  swan,  the  part  of  a 
swan  ;  but  being  a  rational  creature  I  must  praise 
God.  This  is  my  work  and  I  do  it.  I  will  keep 
this  post  as  long  as  I  may,  and  I  exhort  you  to  join 
in  the  chorus.'2  The  same  spirit  pervades  the  Medi- 
tations of  the  Stoic  Emperor,  only  in  them  the  note 
of  sadness  predominates. 

The  ethical  temper  of  Stoicism  is  not  faultless.     It 
is  too  self-reliant,  too   proud,  too  austere.     Never- 

1  From  translation  by  Sir  Alexander  Grant  in  Oxford  Essays,  1858, 
p.  96. 

1  Dissertations,  lib.  i.  cap.  16. 


THE  STOICS:  PROVIDENCE  139 

theless  it  is  the  temper  of  the  hero,  whose  nature  it 
is  to  despise  happiness  so-called,  to  curb  passion, 
and  to  make  duty  his  chief  end  and  chief  good.  A 
little  of  this  temper  helps  one  to  play  the  man,  and 
fight  successfully  the  battle  of  life,  especially  at 
the  critical  turning-points  in  his  experience.  If  the 
mood  pass  with  the  crisis,  and  give  place  to  a  softer, 
gentler  mind,  no  matter.  It  is  well  to  go  from  the 
school  of  the  porch  to  the  Schola  ChristL  But 
Stoicism  has  much  in  common  with  Christianity  ; 
this  above  all,  that  it  asserts  with  equal  emphasis 
the  infinite  worth  of  man.  It  backs  man  against 
the  whole  universe.  In  view  of  the  importance  of 
the  doctrine  we  can  pardon  the  extravagance  with 
which  it  is  asserted,  and  even  think  kindly  of  the 
Stoic  wise  man.  The  very  existence  of  a  man  like 
Epictetus,  a  slave  yet  recognised  within  the  school 
as  a  good  man  and  a  philosopher,  helps  us  to 
measure  the  distance  that  had  been  travelled  in  the 
direction  of  Christian  sentiment  since  the  time  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  To  both  these  philosophers 
the  very  idea  would  have  appeared  a  profanity.1 

1  Vide  Bosanquet,  Civilisation  of  Christendom,  p.  43. 


LECTURE  V 

DIVINATION 

IT  is  not  unfitting  that  a  study  of  Divination  in  its 
bearing  on  the  providential  order  should  form  the 
sequel  to  our  discussion  of  the  opinions  of  the  Stoics 
on  the  same  theme.  For  the  philosophers  of  the 
porch  took  a  prominent  place  among  the  defenders 
of  the  reality  of  divination,  and  of  its  importance 
as  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  care  for  men.  Zeno, 
as  we  learn  from  Cicero,  sowed  the  seeds  of  the 
doctrine,  Cleanthes  adding  somewhat  to  the  store 
of  seminal  utterances,  while  the  third  of  the  great 
founders,  Chrysippus,  dealt  with  the  subject  in  a 
more  elaborate  manner  in  two  books,  adding  another 
on  oracles,  and  a  fourth  on  dreams.  The  tenets  of 
these  masters  became  the  orthodox  tradition  of 
the  school,  which  was  followed  without  dissent  till 
Panaetius,  who  introduced  the  Stoic  philosophy  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  Romans,  about  a  century  and 
a  half  before  the  Christian  era,  ventured  to  hint  a 
modest  doubt  far  from  welcome  to  other  members 
of  the  sect.1  It  happens,  however,  that,  while  few 

1  Cicero,  De  Divinationt^  lib.  i.  cap.  iii. 
140 


DIVINATION  Ut 

of  the  Stoics  called  in  question  the  accepted  doctrine 
on  divination,  some  of  them  have  bequeathed  to  us 
sayings  which,  possibly  without  any  intention  on 
their  part,  can  be  used  with  effect  in  undermining 
that  very  faith  in  the  diviner's  art  which  the 
originators  of  the  school  had  made  it  their  business 
to  propagate.  On  this  ground  also  it  is  suitable 
that  the  topic  should  be  taken  up  at  this  stage. 

The  Stoic  interest  in  divination  was  mixed  up 
with  the  general  conceptions  of  the  school  concern- 
ing God  and  Providence.  The  three  topics — God, 
Providence,  and  Divination — formed  a  closely  con- 
nected group  in  their  minds.  Belief  in  any  one 
of  the  three  was  held  to  imply  belief  in  the  rest, 
so  that  each  of  them  in  turn,  assumed  as  admitted, 
might  be  used  to  prove  the  others.  According  to 
the  purpose  in  view  it  was  argued  now,  if  there  be 
anything  in  divination  then  there  are  gods ;  and 
at  another  time,  if  there  be  gods  then  divination 
must  be  a  reality.  Cicero  has  given  us  in  short 
compass  the  logic  of  the  Stoics  in  plying  the  latter 
of  these  two  complementary  arguments.  It  is  as 
follows.  *  If  there  be  gods,  and  yet  they  do  not 
make  known  to  men  beforehand  the  things  which 
are  to  come  to  pass,  either  they  do  not  love  men, 
or  they  do  not  know  what  is  going  to  happen,  or 
they  think  that  men  have  no  interest  in  knowing 
what  is  going  to  happen,  or  they  think  it  beneath 
their  dignity  to  reveal  the  future,  or  such  revelation 


i4*  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

is  beyond  their  power.  But  they  do  love  us,  for  they 
are  beneficent,  and  friendly  to  the  human  race :  they 
are  not  ignorant  of  things  which  they  themselves 
have  ordained ;  it  is  our  interest  to  know  what  is 
going  to  happen,  for  we  will  be  more  cautious  if 
we  know ;  the  gods  do  not  account  revelation  of  the 
future  beneath  their  dignity,  for  nothing  is  more  be- 
coming than  beneficence ;  and  it  is  in  their  power 
to  know  the  future.  Therefore  it  cannot  be  affirmed 
that  gods  exist,  yet  do  not  by  signs  reveal  the  future. 
But  there  are  gods,  therefore  they  give  signs.  But 
if  they  give  signs  they  must  also  put  within  men's 
reach  the  science  of  their  interpretation,  for  the  one 
without  the  other  would  be  useless.  But  this  science 
is  divination.  Therefore  divination  is  a  reality.'1 
Thus  reasoned  Chrysippus,  Diogenes,  and  Antipater  ; 
acutely  if  not  irrefutably. 

Belief  in  divination  was  not  the  monopoly  of  a 
school  or  a  nation,  but  a  common  feature  of  all 
ancient  ethnic  religion.  'What  king,'  asks  the 
apologist  of  the  belief  in  Cicero's  treatise,  'what 
king  ever  was  there,  what  people,  that  did  not 
employ  the  diviner's  art?'2  That  art  had  great 
vogue,  especially  in  Greece  and  Rome.  The  fact, 
it  has  been  suggested,  is  to  be  accounted  for  by 
the  consideration  that  these  energetic  peoples 
naturally  found  the  chief  interest  of  religion  in  its 

1  Cicero,  De  Divinatione,  lib.  i.  cap.  xxxviii. 
*  Ibid.,  lib.  i.  cap.  xliii. 


DIVINATION  143 

bearing  on  this  life.1  But  this  remark  holds  true 
not  merely  in  reference  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ; 
it  applies  to  pagans  generally.  Absorbing  concern 
for  the  temporal  is  a  characteristic  of  all  peoples 
in  a  rudimentary  moral  condition.  'After  all  these 
things  do  the  Gentiles  seek.'  Their  very  prayers 
are  for  material  benefits,  as  one  can  see  in  the  Vedic 
hymns.  The  summum  bonum  of  crude  religions 
consists  in  the  gifts  of  fortune.  And  wherever 
these  gifts  are  chiefly  sought  after,  the  arts  of 
divination  will  flourish.  Who  will  show  us  any 
good  in  store  for  us  in  the  future?  is  the  question 
on  the  lips  of  many,  and  wherever  keen  curiosity 
as  to  the  secrets  of  to-morrow  prevails,  there  will 
always  be  men  offering  themselves  who  profess 
ability  to  meet  the  demand,  by  drawing  aside  the 
veil  of  mystery  which  hides  things  to  come  from 
human  eyes. 

Divination  may  be  regarded  as  a  primitive  form 
of  revelation,  and  when  placed  under  this  category 
it  gains  in  dignity.  Nothing  can  be  more  natural, 
rational,  and  praiseworthy,  on  the  part  of  beings 
endowed  with  reason,  than  the  desire  to  know  God.. 
Show  me  Thy  glory,  show  me  Thy  ways,  show  me 
Thy  will,  are  prayers  of  which  not  even  the  wisest 
and  most  saintly  have  cause  to  be  ashamed.  What 
is  there  better  worth  knowing  than  the  nature, 

1  A.  Bouche-Leclerq,  Histoire  de  la  Divination  dans  ?Antiquilet 
vol.  i.  p.  3. 


*44  ttt£  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

thoughts,  purposes  of  the  great  mysterious  Being 
who  made  and  sustains  this  world  ?  But  all  depends 
on  the  kind  of  knowledge  sought.  There  are  two 
kinds  of  knowledge  which  a  son  may  desire  to  have 
concerning  his  father.  He  may  wish  to  know  his 
father's  thoughts  about  right  and  wrong,  what  he 
approves  and  what  he  disapproves,  what  he  loves 
and  admires,  and  what  he  hates  and  despises,  that 
he  may  order  his  own  life  so  as  to  win  the  com- 
mendation of  one  whom  he  instinctively  reveres. 
Or  he  may  wish  to  know  how  much  his  father  is 
worth,  and  what  share  of  his  fortune  will  fall  to 
his  own  portion  by  his  will  when  he  dies,  and  to 
what  extent  a  life  of  pleasure  will  thus  be  put 
within  his  reach  in  the  years  to  come.  The  one 
kind  of  knowledge  is  the  desire  of  a  noble-minded 
son,  the  other  of  a  son  the  reverse  of  noble-minded. 
Equally  diverse  in  character  may  be  the  revelations 
men  seek  concerning  God.  The  devout  wish  of 
one  man  may  be  simply  to  know  God's  spirit,  His 
thoughts  towards  men,  whether  they  be  gracious 
or  the  reverse,  to  be  assured  of  His  goodwill,  and 
to  be  informed  as  to  the  kind  of  conduct  that 
pleases  Him.  With  this  knowledge  he  will  be 
content,  living  a  life  of  trust  and  obedience,  and 
for  the  rest  leaving  his  times,  his  whole  future,  in 
God's  hands,  without  curiosity  or  care  as  to  what 
to-morrow  may  bring.  The  eager  desire  of  another 
man  may  be  to  obtain  just  that  kind  of  know- 


DIVINATION  145 

ledge  concerning  God's  purposes  about  which  the 
first-named  person  is  wholly  indifferent,  detailed 
information  as  to  coming  events  in  his  future 
experience :  when  he  is  to  die,  how  and  where, 
the  ups  and  downs  in  his  way  of  life,  the  good 
and  evil,  fortune  and  misfortune,  in  his  lot.  The 
first  kind  of  knowledge  alone  deserves  the  name 
of  revelation.  It  is  ethical  in  character,  and  it 
makes  for  a  life  of  righteousness  and  wisdom.  The 
second  kind  of  knowledge,  if  attainable,  is  of  no 
moral  value,  and  bears  no  worthy  fruit  in  conduct. 
The  desire  for  it  has  its  root  in  secularity  of  mind, 
and  the  real  or  imaginary  gratification  of  it  can 
only  tend  to  a  more  abject  bondage  to  the  secular 
spirit. 

The  agent  of  revelation  in  connection  with  the 
higher  kind  of  knowledge  above  described  is  the 
prophet,  in  connection  with  the  lower  the  diviner 
or  soothsayer.  The  characters  of  the  two  types  of 
agents  are  as  diverse  as  their  occupations.  The 
prophet  is  a  man  of  simple,  pure,  unworldly  spirit. 
He  has  a  consuming  passion  for  truth.  His  one 
desire  is  to  know  God  as  manifested  in  the  world 
He  has  made,  and  in  the  history  of  mankind,  and 
with  absolute  sincerity  and  unreserve  to  make 
known  to  others  the  vision  he  has  seen.  He  has 
also  a  passion  for  righteousness  as,  in  his  judgment, 
the  highest  interest  of  life,  and  he  makes  it  his 
business  to  preach  the  great  doctrine  that  a  people 

K 


146  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

doing  justly  must  prosper,  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  the  future,  can  defy  all  adverse  fortune.  But 
the  diviner:  what  sort  of  a  man  is  he?  By  the 
impartial  testimony  of  history,  a  repulsive  com- 
bination of  superstition,  greed,  fraud,  pretension, 
and  ambition.  Anything  but  a  simple-minded  man 
is  the  soothsayer ;  rather  is  he  dark,  enigmatical, 
inscrutable.  '  Worthless,  and  full  of  falsehood  are 
the  utterances  of  soothsayers,'  asserts  vehemently 
Euripides.1  '  The  whole  tribe  of  diviners  are 
covetous/2  declares,  with  no  less  emphasis, 
Sophocles.  With  this  scorn  and  contempt  of  the 
Greek  tragedians  harmonises  the  tone  in  which 
Hebrew  prophets  ever  speak  of  the  fortune-telling 
tribe  in  their  Semitic  world. 

Yet  we  must  not  judge  of  all  who,  in  primitive 
times,  believed  in  and  practised  divination,  by  the 
depraved  character  of  the  professional  diviner  of  a 
later  age.  The  two  kinds  of  knowledge  above 
contrasted  might  be  combined  as  objects  of  desire 
in  the  religious  consciousness,  and  both  might  be 
sought  in  perfect  simplicity  of  heart.  Why  should 
not  God  communicate  both  to  them  that  loved 
Him ;  reveal  to  them  the  law  of  duty  as  summed 
up  in  the  Decalogue,  and  make  known  also  the 
good  and  evil  that  were  to  befall  them  in  the 
future?  The  law  of  chastity  was  written  on  the 
heart  of  Joseph,  as  his  behaviour  in  the  house  of 

1  Helena,  745,  746.  2  Antigone,  1036. 


DIVINATION  147 

Potiphar  attests.  He  feared  God  from  his  youth, 
and  set  moral  duty  above  all  considerations  of 
advantage.  But  Joseph  was  also  a  dreamer  of 
dreams,  which  he  regarded  as  divine  intimations  of 
coming  events  in  his  own  life ;  and  he  was  an 
interpreter  of  the  dreams  of  others,  in  which  he 
found  pre-intimations  of  years  of  plenty  and  of 
famine  in  the  near  future  of  the  land  of  Egypt. 
Joseph  had  the  prophet's  love  of  righteousness,  yet 
he  could  divine.  In  those  simple  times  men  would 
view  his  divining  talent  as  the  natural  result  of  his 
righteousness.  To  whom  should  the  secret  of  the 
Lord  be  revealed  but  to  them  that  feared  Him,  to 
a  Joseph  or  to  a  Daniel?  The  Stoics  said  that 
the  wise  man  alone  can  divine.1  That  sentiment 
was  a  survival  of  the  feeling  of  far  back  antiquity. 
In  the  mouth  of  the  Stoics  it  seems  an  anachronism, 
for  by  their  time  it  had  been  made  manifest  that 
the  ways  of  the  diviner  and  the  ways  of  wisdom 
and  goodness  were  apt  to  lie  far  apart,  and  that 
lovers  of  wisdom,  like  Sophocles  and  Euripides, 
were  inclined  to  show  their  bias  by  expressing 
abhorrence  for  the  diviner's  character,  and  their 
unbelief  in  the  value  of  his  pretended  revelations. 
But  in  claiming  the  diviner's  vocation  for  the  wise, 
the  Stoics  were  simply  repeating  the  verdict  of  the 
tragic  poets  in  a  different  form.  They  acknowledged 
the  degeneracy,  but  refused  to  despair  of  the  art. 

1   Vide  Stobaei,  Eclog.,  lib.  ii.  238. 


i48  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

They  aimed  at  reform  rather  than  destruction. 
'  Divination,'  they  said  in  effect,  *  is  a  sorry  business 
as  actually  practised,  but  put  it  into  the  hands  of 
the  wise  man  and  all  will  be  well.1  Perhaps  so,  but 
what  if  the  wise  man  declined  the  honour?  That 
is  what  we  should  expect  from  the  wise  man  as 
conceived  by  the  Stoics. 

The  media  of  revelation  at  the  diviner's  disposal 
were  manifold.  He  could  range  over  the  wide 
region  of  the  fortuitous,  the  unusual,  and  the 
marvellous,  assumed  to  be  specially  significant. 
Whatever  in  the  heavens  or  the  earth,  or  beneath 
the  earth,  or  in  the  aerial  spaces,  was  fitted  to 
arrest  attention  or  awaken  the  sense  of  mystery 
and  awe,  might  be  expected  to  yield  significant 
omens  to  those  who  had  the  eye  to  see  and  the 
ear  to  hear.  The  whole  world  was  full  of  signs, 
hinting  meanings  bearing  on  the  fortunes  of  men, 
and  revealing  to  those  who  could  understand  the 
secrets  of  the  past  and  the  present,  and  above  all 
of  the  future.  There  were  signs  in  the  stars,  in  the 
thunder-storm,  in  the  flight  and  song  of  birds,  in 
the  murmur  of  the  wind  among  the  leaves  of  an  oak- 
tree,  in  the  livers  of  sacrificial  victims,  in  the  visions 
of  the  dreamer,  and  in  the  utterances  of  madmen. 
The  question  was  not,  where  could  the  voice 
of  God  be  heard,  but  where  could  it  not  be 
heard  ?  There  was  a  plethora  of  revelation,  and  it 
was  a  matter  of  taste  to  which  department  in  the 


DIVINATION  149 

ample  compass  of  the  soothsayer's  art  any  one 
might  devote  himself.  There  was  room  and  need 
for  specialisation,  that  every  sort  of  divination 
might  have  its  experts.  If  one  method  of  ascer- 
taining the  divine  will  went  out  of  fashion,  it  did 
not  greatly  matter,  another  was  sure  to  take  its 
place.  One  people  might  learn  from  another.  The 
Chaldaeans  were  the  masters  of  astrology.  The 
Greeks  had  their  far-famed  Delphic  oracle.  The 
Etruscans  were  the  inventors  of  fulgural  divination 
and  of  haruspicy. 

Among  the  most  ancient  and  most  interesting 
forms  of  divination  was  that  of  augury,  which  sought 
to  ascertain  the  will  of  the  gods  by  observing  the 
flight  and  the  song  of  birds.  Its  prevalence  and 
popularity  in  Greece  from  an  early  period  is  attested 
by  the  fame  of  Tiresias  and  Calchas  in  mythological 
story,  and  by  the  use  of  the  Greek  name  for  a  bird, 
opvw,  in  Athenian  speech,  as  a  generic  name  for  all 
presages.  The  chief  place  among  the  birds  of  fate 
was  assigned  to  the  eagle,  the  vulture,  the  raven,  and 
the  crow ;  but  before  all  to  the  high-flying  birds  of 
prey  which  appear  to  reach  heaven.1  These  messen- 
gers of  Zeus,  on  whose  cries  and  movements  so 
much  was  believed  to  depend,  filled  the  breasts  of 
simple-minded  beholders  with  superstitious  awe. 
Even  free  -  thinking  philosophers,  living  after  the 

1  Vide  Nagelsbach,  Die  nachhomerische  Theologie  des  Griechischen 
VolksglaubenS)  p.  164. 


150  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  like  Celsus  and 
Porphyry,  ascribed  to  the  eagle  and  other  omen- 
bearing  birds  greater  importance  than  to  man.  The 
feeling  of  more  ancient  times  is  happily  reflected  in 
the  Ion  of  Euripides.  The  foundling  of  that  name  is 
temple-sweeper  in  the  shrine  of  Apollo  his  father,  at 
Delphi.  One  of  his  menial  duties  is  to  keep  the 
birds  from  defiling  the  sacred  edifice.  But  they 
come  one  after  another  ;  now  an  eagle,  now  a  swan, 
now  some  other  winged  creature,  from  Mount 
Parnassus,  or  the  Delian  lake,  or  the  banks  of  the 
Alpheus.  Ion  warns  them  off,  bids  them  return  to 
their  accustomed  haunts,  even  threatens  them  with 
an  arrow  from  his  bow.  But  he  has  not  the  courage 
to  carry  out  his  threat  ;  boy  though  he  be,  he  is 
restrained  by  religious  awe.  '  I  am  afraid  to  kill 
you,  who  announce  to  mortals  the  messages  of  the 
gods/1  Euripides  had  no  faith  in  divination  in  any 
form,  but  augury  had  a  romantic  side  which  would 
appeal  to  him  as  a  poet. 

The  same  thing  cannot  be  said  of  haruspicy,  that 
form  of  divination  which  sought  divine  omens  in  the 
bowels  of  slaughtered  animals.  This  contribution  to 
the  resources  of  the  soothsayer's  art  is  as  unromantic 
and  unpoetical,  not  to  say  repulsive,  as  can  be  con- 
ceived. One  can  with  difficulty  imagine  a  people 


y/«ij  aldovfj.au, 
roift  6cut>  dyyAXovraj  <f) 
ls.—font  179,  l8o. 


DIVINATION  151 

like  the  Greeks  adopting  it,  not  to  speak  of  originat- 
ing it.  Its  proper  home  was  among  the  Etruscans, 
but  it  soon  migrated  to  Rome,  where  it  found  a  con- 
genial harbour  among  a  prosaic,  utilitarian  race. 
Cicero,  no  believer  in  divination,  thought  the  best 
way  of  making  this  art  ridiculous  was  to  tell  the 
grotesque  story  of  its  discovery,  which  was  to  the 
following  effect.  A  certain  person  named  Tages 
suddenly  arose  in  a  deep-drawn  furrow  in  a  field 
which  was  being  ploughed,  and  spoke  to  the  plough- 
man. This  Tages  was  described  in  the  Etruscan 
books  as  a  boy  in  face  but  with  an  old  man's  wisdom. 
The  ploughman,  amazed  at  the  apparition,  expressed 
his  surprise  with  a  shout  which  drew  a  crowd  to  the 
spot,  to  which  the  stranger  with  the  boy's  face  and 
the  old  man's  mind  communicated  the  rudiments  of 
the  haruspicine  art.  What  need,  adds  the  narrator, 
of  a  Carneades  or  an  Epicurus  to  refute  such  absurdi- 
ties ?  Who  can  believe  in  a  creature,  call  him  god  or 
man,  ploughed  up  in  a  field?1  The  conception  is 
certainly  grotesque  enough,  and  it  seems  to  imply  a 
lurking  feeling  that  the  art  which  formed  the  subject 
of  this  strange  being's  course  of  instruction  could 
never  have  entered  into  the  mind  of  any  ordinary 
human  being.  And  yet,  to  do  the  Etruscans  justice, 
it  must  be  owned  that  if  there  was  any  reality  in 
divination,  and  if  the  assumptions  on  which  it  rested 
had  any  validity,  the  inspection  of  entrails  was  just 

1  De  DivinationC)  lib.  ii.  cap.  xxii. 


152  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

as  natural,  and  rational,  as  any  other  divinatory 
practice.  All  who  offered  sacrifices  to  the  gods  had 
a  vital  interest  in  making  sure  that  the  victims  would 
be  acceptable,  and  so  obtain  the  benefit  sought. 
External  qualities,  such  as  freedom  from  blemish,  or 
the  possession  of  certain  marks,  could  be  ascertained 
while  the  animal  was  living,  but  the  interior  of  the 
body  could  be  inspected  only  after  death.1  But  why 
inspect  the  interior  if  the  exterior  was  in  order? 
Because  it  was  one  of  the  assumptions  on  which 
divination  rested  that  the  unusual  was  significant. 
Suppose,  now,  some  peculiarity  was  discovered, 
possibly  by  accident,  in  the  liver  of  a  dead  animal 
intended  for  sacrifice.  How  natural  the  thought : 
'This  means  something.  What  if  a  victim  with  this 
peculiarity  were  unacceptable  to  the  deity  we  desire 
to  propitiate?  It  may  seem  a  small  matter,  but 
nothing  is  small  in  the  ritual  of  sacrifice,  on  which 
so  much  depends.'  The  moment  these  thoughts 
entered  the  mind  of  a  priestly  functionary  the  art  of 
haruspicy  was  on  the  point  of  being  born. 

One  would  think  that  the  stars  were  too  far  away 
to  run  any  risk  of  falling  within  the  diviner's  cog- 
nisance. Yet  astrology  prevailed  in  the  East 
generally,  and  especially  in  Chaldaea,  and  in  Egypt, 
from  a  very  early  time.  It  spread  to  the  West 
about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  and,  in 
spite  of  severe  discouragement  at  the  hands  of  the 

1  So  Nagelsbach,  Nachhomcrischt  Theohgit,  p.  167. 


DIVINATION  153 

Imperial  government,  it  steadily  gained  ground, 
until  it  finally  eclipsed  all  other  forms  of  divination, 
including  haruspicy.  Even  since  the  era  of  modern 
science  dawned,  some  distinguished  students  of 
nature  have  not  been  insensible  to  its  fascinations. 
Nor,  when  we  reflect  on  the  matter,  is  this  difficult 
to  understand.  The  only  postulate  required  to  start 
the  astrologer  on  his  career  is  that  the  stars,  fixed 
and  wandering,  like  the  sun  and  moon,  are  there  for 
the  service  of  man.  The  service  rendered  by  the 
sun  is  immense.  His  light  and  heat  are  the  life 
of  the  world.  The  moon  is  emphatically  the  lesser 
light,  yet  she  does  in  a  humbler  way  for  the  night 
what  the  sun  does  more  perfectly  for  the  day :  yields 
light  to  guide  the  path  of  men.  What  then  is  the 
function  of  the  stars,  so  multitudinous  in  number? 
The  light  they  give,  notwithstanding  their  vast 
number,  is  insignificant ;  they  must  therefore  have 
been  set  in  the  sky  for  some  other  purpose  than  that 
of  illumination.  Or  rather,  may  one  not  say:  If  they 
also  are  to  be  regarded  as  luminaries,  the  light  they 
give  must  be  not  that  which  is  appreciable  by  the 
physical  eye,  but  that  rather  which  addresses  itself  to 
the  contemplative  mind  brooding  over  the  mysteries 
of  human  life?  May  the  motions  and  positions  of 
the  stars  not  give  a  clue  to  the  diversity  of  human 
experience?  Suppose  we.  try.  Let  us  divide  the 
starry  sphere  into  twelve  divisions,  or  houses,  like 
twelve  liths  of  an  orange,  six  above  the  horizon, 


154  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

and  six  below,  assigning  to  each  a  distinctive  char- 
acter and  its  own  measure  of  influence  on  human 
destiny.  Then  let  us  observe  the  position  of  these 
houses  at  the  birth-hour  of  this  or  that  human  being, 
say  the  child  of  a  king,  or  of  a  prince  or  a  sage,  and 
let  us  watch  throughout  the  years  which  follow  how 
far  the  actual  career  of  those  whose  nativity  was  cast 
corresponds  with  what  the  astrological  indications 
led  us  to  expect.  If  in  the  life-histories  of  some 
notable  men  remarkable  correspondences  are  dis- 
covered, then  the  hypothesis  that  the  positions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  if  they  do  not  exert  a  causal 
influence  upon,  do  at  least  help  us  to  predict,  the 
course  of  human  destiny,  may  be  regarded  as  estab- 
lished. This  conception  of  the  movements  of  the 
stars  as  in  a  pre-established  harmony  with  the 
changes  in  man's  life  has  a  certain  magnificence 
about  it  which  appeals  to  the  imagination ;  and  we 
can  easily  understand  how  it  should  commend  itself 
to  the  Stoics,  with  their  pantheistic  theory  of  solid- 
arity binding  together  all  parts  of  the  universe,  and 
even  to  an  astronomer  like  Kepler. 

The  far-famed  Delphic  Oracle  supplies  an  instance 
in  which  the  natural  medium  of  revelation  was  a 
subterranean  influence  in  the  form  of  an  intoxicating 
vapour,  which,  when  inhaled  by  the  priestess  sitting 
on  the  tripod  over  the  chasm  whence  the  exhalation 
proceeded,  inspired  her  with  the  gift  of  prophecy. 
The  unusual  character  of  the  phenomenon  seemed  to 


DIVINATION  155 

point  it  out  as  available  for  divining  purposes,  and 
the  alleged  effect,  in  an  age  when  divination  was 
believed  in,  would  be  regarded  as  amply  justifying 
expectation.  The  solitude  of  the  spot  and  its  sublime 
surroundings,  hemmed  in  by  mountain  precipices,  were 
fitted  to  create  on  susceptible  minds  the  impression 
that  here,  if  anywhere,  the  gods  might  be  expected  to 
speak  to  men.  In  the  Homeric  hymn  to  the  Pythian 
Apollo  that  god  is  represented  as  seeking  for  a  spot 
where  he  may  found  an  oracle,  and  on  coming  to 
Crissa  under  Mount  Parnassus,  as  finding  there  a 
place  manifestly  marked  out  for  the  purpose  by  its 
seclusion  and  by  the  grandeur  of  its  environment.1 
The  wisdom  of  his  selection  was  proved  by  the 
event.  The  oracle  of  Delphi  became  renowned 
throughout  Greece  and  beyond,  and  eclipsed  all 
other  means  of  ascertaining  the  divine  will.  It  was 
noj/the  only  oracle  in  Greece.  There  were  oracles 
of  gods,  demons,  and  heroes ;  and  in  particular  one 
at  Dodona,  sacred  to  Zeus,  whose  prestige  lay  in  its 
great  antiquity.  Its  divine  signs  were  the  sound 
of  the  rushing  wind  among  the  leaves  of  an  oak,  the 
murmur  of  a  spring  at  its  foot,  and  a  caldron  or  pan 
of  bronze  suspended  on  its  branches  with  a  chain  that 
knocked  in  the  breeze  against  its  side  and  spoke 
divine  messages  to  the  devout  ear.  In  the  old  times 
of  orthodox  Pagan  faith  they  were  wont  to  speak  of 
the  basin  that  is  never  silent,  and  when  a  new  faith 

1  Ilgen's  Hymni  ffomerici,  p.  13. 


156  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

had  come  in  its  adherents  said  in  triumph :  '  The  oak 
speaks  no  more,'  'the  caldron  prophesies  no  more.' 
But  Delphi  outshone  Dodona,  and  still  more  did  it 
extinguish  the  light  of  individual  diviners  of  the  type 
of  Calchas  and  Tiresias.  It  grew  to  be  the  centre  of 
a  wealthy  religious  corporation,  and  it  became  an 
important  factor  in  the  political  history  of  Grecian 
states,  through  the  answers  which  it  gave  to  those 
who  sought  its  guidance  in  affairs  of  grave  import. 
These  answers  were  rendered  more  imposing  by 
being  delivered  at  first  in,  or  translated  into,  hexa- 
meters. The  poetry,  if  it  came  from  the  lips  of  the 
Pythia,  must  be  put  to  the  credit  of  the  inspiring 
god ;  for  the  qualification  for  being  a  good  Pythian 
prophetess  was  to  be  entirely  passive  under  divine 
influence,  a  mere  mechanical  mouthpiece  of  Apollo. 
The  time  came  when  poetry  gave  way  to  plain  prose, 
and  the  fame  of  the  oracle  began  to  decline.  It  fell 
into  disrepute  when  Greece  lost  its  independence 
under  Macedonia  and  Rome.  From  that  time  it 
ceased  to  be  a  political  power,  and  degenerated  into 
an  establishment  for  carrying  on  the  trade  of  vulgar 
soothsaying. 

This  decline  became  a  subject  of  anxious  reflection 
to  devout  adherents  of  the  old  religion.  In  an  essay 
on  the  cessation  of  oracles,  Plutarch  offers  tentative 
solutions.  It  was  a  natural  subject  of  discussion  for 
one  who  had  studied  philosophy  at  Delphi,  and  had 
an  opportunity  of  observing  how  the  glory  of  the 


DIVINATION  157 

oracle  had  departed  in  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  the 
first  century  of  our  era.  In  that  essay  Plutarch  makes 
one  of  his  interlocutors  say :  '  Is  it  wonderful  if,  with 
iniquity  abounding,  not  only  as  Hesiod  foretold, 
reverence  and  justice  have  forsaken  the  earth,  but 
also  the  Providence  of  the  gods,  which  provided  the 
oracles,  hath  everywhere  departed  ? '  Another,  in  a 
similar  strain,  suggests  that  Providence  having  given 
men,  as  a  benevolent  parent,  many  other  things,  had 
refused  them  oracles  for  their  sins.  An  entirely  dis- 
tinct theory  is  hinted  at  when  the  view  is  enunciated 
by  a  third  party  in  the  discussion  that  not  God  but 
demons  are  the  cause  of  the  cessation.  Demons,  un- 
like the  gods,  are  subject  to  change,  decay,  senility, 
and  religious  institutions  in  which  they  act  as  the 
agents  of  Deity  may  share  their  subjection  to  transi- 
ency./' Cicero,  discussing  the  same  topic,  in  his  work 
on  Divination,  ignores  this  distinction  between  gods 
and  demons,  and  treats  the  theory  as  subjecting  the 
gods  to  the  category  of  decay,  and  therefore  as  false 
and  untenable.  Age,  he  contends,  cannot  affect  the 
divine,  meaning  to  hint  that  the  oracle,  had  it  been 
really  divine,  would  have  been  eternal,  and  that  the 
simple  explanation  of  its  decay  was  that  men  began 
to  be  less  credulous.1 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  question,  Is 
divination  a  reality,  or  is  it  only  a  great  delusion  ? 
The  knowledge  of  the  future  which  the  diviner 

1  Dt  Divinatione,  lib.  ii.  cap.  Ivii. 


158  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

promises  to  put  within  men's  reach  by  his  art  is 
tempting,  if  there  be  such  a  thing;  but  is  there? 
Reflection  suggests  doubts  of  various  sorts :  as  to 
the  possibility,  the  rationality,  the  certainty,  the 
utility,  and  the  moral  tendency  of  the  foresight  thus 
acquired.  On  the  first  of  these  points  Cicero  presses 
believers  in  divination  with  a  dilemma.  Fortuities, 
he  argues,  cannot  be  foreseen,  therefore  there  is 
no  divination  ;  fatalities  can  be  foreseen,  because 
certain ;  therefore  again  there  is  no  divination, 
because  divination  has  to  do  with  the  fortuitous.1 
The  reasoning  is  addressed  to  the  Stoics,  who 
believed  both  in  fate  and  in  divination,  and  is 
intended  to  convince  them  of  the  inconsistency 
of  their  position.  The  Stoics  were  acute  logicians, 
and  would  have  their  own  way  of  getting  out 
of  the  difficulty.  Their  idea  of  the  matter  seems 
to  have  been  this :  that,  from  the  beginning,  the 
world  was  so  ordered  that  certain  signs,  discoverable 
in  different  parts  of  nature,  as  in  the  stars  of  heaven, 
or  in  the  livers  of  animals,  should  precede  certain 
events,  so  that  the  law  of  connection  between  sign 
and  event  being  once  ascertained,  from  the  observed 
sign  the  event  could  be  predicted.2  This  view, 
while  recognising  the  superficial  aspect  of  fortui- 
tousness in  the  system  of  signs,  regards  them  as,  not 
less  than  the  events,  pre-ordained,  and  certain.  It 
implies  further  that  both  signs  and  events,  while 

1  De  Divination*,  lib.  ii,  cap.  z.  f  Ibid. ,  lib.  i.  cap.  Hi. 


DIVINATION  159 

Ideologically  connected,  may  have  physical  causes. 
The  doctrine  practically  amounts  to  the  assertion 
that  a  fixed  physical  order  and  a  providential  order 
are  not  mutually  exclusive,  but  are  simply  different 
aspects  of  the  same  universe.  So  stated,  the 
position  of  the  Stoics  is  not  easily  assailed,  and  on 
the  whole  it  may  be  admitted  that  divination  is  not 
to  be  got  rid  of  by  short-hand  metaphysical  argu- 
mentation. The  conception  of  a  system  of  inter- 
pretable  signs  inwoven  into  the  frame  of  nature, 
intended  by  Divine  Providence  to  serve  the  purpose 
of  revealing  the  future,  is  not  on  the  face  of  it  absurd. 
But  abstract  possibility  is  one  thing,  probability, 
or  rationality,  is  another.  In  the  theory  of  divina- 
tion the  unusual  is  supposed  to  be  the  appropriate 
region  o/  the  significant.  If  you  want  to  find  the 
signs  whose  accurate  interpretation  yields  the  know- 
ledge of  future  events,  you  must  seek  them  above 
all  among  the  rarer  phenomena  of  nature.  This 
proposition,  while  commending  itself  to  men  living 
in  a  pre-scientific  age  as  natural  and  reasonable,  is 
nevertheless  very  open  to  criticism.  It  is  easy  to 
see,  of  course,  how  the  unusual  should  be  regarded 
as  the  sphere  of  the  divinely  significant  when  the 
unusual  was  conceived  as  that  which  had  no  natural 
cause.  Then  a  portent,  such  as  that  of  a  mule 
having  offspring,  naturally  passed  for  a  vehicle  of 
special  divine  revelation.  Against  this  popular  way 
of  thinking,  Cicero  taught  that  every  event  has  a. 


160  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

natural  cause,  and  that,  though  praeter  consuetu- 
dinem,  it  is  not  praeter  naturam.  A  mule  bearing 
offspring  a  miracle  because  it  does  not  happen 
often  ! l  If  it  could  not  have  happened  it  would  not ; 
if  it  could,  it  is  not  a  miracle.2  Thus  viewed,  the 
unusual  can  have  no  special  significance  as  com- 
pared with  the  usual.  The  only  question  is  whether 
it  can  have  even  as  much  significance,  not  to  speak 
of  more.  That  there  is  a  revelation  of  God  and  of 
His  will  in  nature  is  every  way  credible.  But  what 
sort  of  revelation  is  to  be  expected,  and  where  is  it 
chiefly  to  be  looked  for?  If  the  knowledge  desired 
be  that  of  special  events  in  the  future,  as  procured 
by  the  diviner's  art,  then  the  unusual  is  necessarily 
the  significant,  because  there  is  nothing  in  the  usual 
to  attract  attention.  That  the  sun  rises  every  day 
can  mean  nothing  for  any  individual  man  or 
people,  but  that  the  sun  undergoes  eclipse  at  a 
critical  juncture  may  be  very  ominous  in  reference 
to  an  impending  event,  such  as  a  battle.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  knowledge  sought  be  that  of 
general  laws,  as  revealing  Divine  Reason  and  Divine 
Beneficence,  then  the  usual  is  the  significant  and 
the  unusual  the  non-significant,  or  that  in  which 
significance  is  obscure.  Though  both  alike  due  to 
physical  causes,  the  usual  and  the  unusual  are 
nevertheless  both  capable  of  being  the  vehicle  of 
revelation  ;  but  if  the  revelation  desired  be  of  the 

1  De  Divinatione,  lib.  ii.  cap.  xxviii.  *  Ibid.,  lib.  ii.  cap.  xxii. 


DIVINATION  161 

nature  last  described,  then  the  advantage  lies  not 
with  that  which  happens  rarely,  but  with  that  which 
happens  regularly.  I  would  sooner  trust  the  lark's 
song  on  a  summer  morning  as  a  revelation  of  the 
truth  that  the  earth  is  full  of  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord,  than  believe  that  the  issue  of  a  battle  depended 
on  the  crowing  of  a  cock,  or  the  fortune  of  war  on 
the  dropping  of  grain  on  the  ground  from  the 
greedy  mouths  of  sacred  chickens.1  It  is  what  one 
can  learn  from  the  rule  rather  than  from  the  ex- 
ception, from  the  fixed  order  of  nature  rather  than 
from  what  seem  breaches  of  that  order,  or  random 
chances  subject  to  no  order,  that  is  important.  The 
Psalmist  understood  this  when  he  wrote :  *  The 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  ...  in  them  hath 
He  set  a  t/Cbernacle  for  the  sun.  .  .  .  His  going  forth 
is  from  the  end  of  the  heaven,  and  his  circuit  unto 
the  ends  of  it :  and  there  is  nothing  hid  from  the 
heat  thereof.' 2  The  sun  in  his  daily  course,  not  in 
the  rare  eclipse,  is  for  the  Psalmist  the  declarer  of 
the  Divine  glory.  And,  granting  for  a  moment 
that  the  two  kinds  of  revelation  are  possible,  a 
general  revelation  of  the  glorious  reason,  wisdom, 

1  Observation  of  the  feeding  of  the  sacred  chickens  was  another  of 
the  prosaic  forms  of  divination  in  use  among  the  Romans.     The  more 
greedily  the  chickens  ate  the  more  of  the  food  would  fall  to  the  ground, 
and  this  was  regarded  as  a  favourable  omen.     The  omen  was  techni- 
cally  called  tripudiitm — terripavium,    suggesting    that   the    quantity 
which  fell  from  the  mouth  of  the  fowl  was  enough  to  make  the  earth 
quake.     Vide  Cicero,  De  Divinatione^  lib.  ii.  cap.  xxxiv. 

2  Psalm  xix.  1-6. 


162  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

justice,  and  goodness  of  God,  and  a  special  revela- 
tion of  particular  events  concerning  the  future 
fortunes  of  individuals  and  peoples,  there  can  be 
little  question  in  rightly  conditioned  minds  as  to 
which  of  the  two  is  the  more  important.  The 
diviner  may  possibly  have  his  place,  but  it  is  far 
in  the  background  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
prophet.  The  prophet  also  has  something  to  say 
on  the  future  fortunes  of  men  and  nations,  but  the 
special  events  he  takes  an  interest  in  are  simply 
concrete  exemplifications  of  great  moral  principles. 
The  general  ethical  revelation  of  God  is  for  him  the 
thing  of  supreme  value. 

The  lack  of  certainty  in  the  diviner's  revelation 
is  a  grave  drawback.  Not  much  is  gained  by  the 
existence  of  a  system  of  interpretable  signs.  All 
turns  on  the  interpretations.  Who  is  to  be  the  in- 
terpreter? Who  is  to  fix  the  principles  of  inter- 
pretation ?  Are  they  to  be  determined  by  guessing 
to  begin  with,  and  then  by  verifying  the  guesses  by 
subsequent  observation  ?  Take  dreams,  for  example. 
Some  appear  utterly  trivial,  some  grotesque ;  few 
reveal  plainly  what  they  are  supposed  to  mean. 
How  shall  we  know  which  have  any  meaning,  and 
how  shall  we  find  out  the  import  of  those  which 
have,  seeing  their  significance  is  for  the  most  part 
enigmatical?  Cicero  compares  the  gods,  making 
so-called  revelations  through  dreams,  to  Cartha- 
ginians or  Spaniards  speaking  in  the  Roman  Senate 


DIVINATION  163 

without  an  interpreter ; l  and  he  lays  down  the 
peremptory  principle  that  if  the  gods  want  men  to 
know,  the  signs  they  give  ought  to  be  clear,  and  if 
they  do  not  want  men  to  know  they  ought  not  to 
give  any  signs  at  all,  not  even  occult  ones.2  There 
is  force  in  his  contention.  To  what  purpose  fill  the 
world  with  an  elaborate  system  of  premonitory  signs 
which  are  as  hard  to  interpret  as  hieroglyphics,  and 
by  their  obscurity  offer  a  too  tempting  opportunity 
to  the  pretender  and  the  quack  ? 

Supposing  the  difficulty  of  interpretation  to  be 
got  over,  the  next  question  that  arises  is,  cut  bono  ? 
Is  it  useful  to  know  beforehand  what  is  going  to 
befall  us  ?  Is  it  not  rather  a  merciful  arrangement 
that  the  future  is  hidden  from  our  eyes  by  a  thick 
veil,  so  that  we  can  live  in  hope  even  when  tragic 
experiences  lie  before  us?  Does  not  that  very 
divine  care  for  men  which  is  the  major  premiss  of 
the  argument  in  support  of  divination  really  raise  a 
presumption  against  it  ?  May  we  not  argue  :  *  Yes, 
God  does  care  for  man,  therefore  He  keeps  the  times 
and  seasons  in  His  own  power,  so  that  neither  men 
nor  angels  know  the  day  or  hour.'  '  Would  Pompey, 
think  you/  asks  Cicero,  'have  rejoiced  in  his  three 
consulships,  and  his  three  triumphs,  if  he  had 
known  that  he  was  to  be  murdered  in  an  Egyptian 
solitude,  after  losing  his  army,  and  that  after  his 

1  De  Divinatione,  lib.  ii.  cap.  Ixiv. 
*  Ibid.)  lib.  ii.  cap.  xxv. 


1 64  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

death  things  were  to  happen  which  cannot  be  spoken 
of  without  tears?'1 

On  the  relation  of  divination  to  the  moral  order 
I  shall  have  an  opportunity  of  speaking  in  next 
Lecture ;  meantime  I  offer  a  few  observations  on  its 
moral  tendency.  Moral  tendency  is  not  to  be  put  in 
the  forefront  in  criticising  a  system,  but  when  evil 
results  are  as  prominent  as  they  certainly  are  in  the 
history  of  divination,  it  is  legitimate  to  refer  to  them 
as  raising  a  grave  doubt  whether  the  diviner  has 
any  claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  instrument  of 
a  beneficent  Providence.  Roman  annals  report 
damning  facts  against  the  astrologers.  They  were 
expelled  from  Rome  in  A.D.  139,  as  a  public 
nuisance  and  danger  to  the  State.  Tacitus  describes 
the  Mathematicians  as  a  race  of  men  treacherous 
to  the  powerful,  deceitful  to  those  whose  hopes  they 
fed  ;  a  race  which  would  always  deserve  to  be  under 
the  ban,  and  which  nevertheless  would  always  re- 
ceive encouragement.2  A  Christian  bishop  of  early 
date  describes  the  same  class  of  men  as  making 
kings  disappear  by  promising  to  their  murderers 
impunity.8  Shakespeare  recognised  the  justice  of 
the  accusation  in  reference  to  the  whole  soothsaying 
tribe  when  he  made  the  salutation  of  the  witches  on 
the  blasted  heath,  'All  hail,  Macbeth!  that  shalt 
be  king  hereafter/  bear  its  natural  fruit  in  murder. 

1  De  Divinatione,  lib.  ii.  cap.  ix. 

*  Historic,  i.  22.  a  Hippolytus,  Rtf.  H*r.,  lib.  iv.  7. 


DIVINATION  165 

Such  facts  help  us  to  understand,  if  not  to  sympa- 
thise with,  the  stern  injunction  in  the  legislative 
code  of  Israel:  'Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to 
live.'1 

Without  insisting  on  the  crimes  of  fortune-tellers 
of  all  grades  and  descriptions,  it  may  be  affirmed 
that  the  decline  of  faith  in  divination  was  bound  to 
keep  pace  with  the  growth  of  the  moral  conscious- 
ness. In  this  connection  the  influence  of  the  Stoics 
deserves  to  be  considered.  For  it  is  true  of  them, 
as  was  remarked  at  the  commencement  of  this 
Lecture,  that  they  were  destroyers  of  the  faith  in 
divination  which  they  preached.  They  played  two 
mutually  antagonistic  parts.  They  furnished  divina- 
tion with  a  theoretic  basis,  and  they  supplied 
scepticism  with  conclusive  arguments  against  its 
reality  and  value.  The  foundations  of  faith  were 
sapped  by  sayings  uttered  by  leaders  of  the  school. 
Among  these  may  be  reckoned  that  which  affirmed 
that  the  wise  alone  could  divine.  This  saying,  on 
the  lips  of  the  Stoics,  had  not  the  depth  of  spiritual 
meaning  that  belongs  to  the  Beatitude  :  '  Blessed 
are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God/  but  it 
looks  in  the  same  direction.  For  what  is  the  wise 
man  of  Stoicism  ?  He  is  one  who  sets  little  store  on 
the  goods  of  fortune,  in  comparison  with  the  supreme 
good  of  virtue.  If  such  a  man  alone  can  divine,  the 
trade  of  the  diviner  will  be  in  danger  of  falling  out 
1  Exodus  xxii.  18. 


1 66  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  fashion.  He  will  not  care  either  to  be  himself  a 
diviner  or  to  be  a  consulter  of  diviners.  He  will 
regard  the  future  events  of  outward  fortune  as  not 
worth  ascertaining,  and  though  the  world  be  full  of 
signs  by  which  these  events  can  be  predicted  he 
will  not  take  the  trouble  either  to  discover  or  to 
interpret  them.  Ultimately  this  mood  must  end  in 
scepticism  as  to  the  existence  of  such  interpretable 
signs ;  for  why  credit  the  gods  with  taking  pains 
to  provide  means  for  obtaining  a  knowledge  of  the 
future  which  wise  men  do  not  value?  Probably  this 
feeling  was  the  source  of  the  doubt  of  Panaetius. 

A  disintegrating  spirit  lurks  in  certain  sayings  of 
Epictetus  on  the  subject  of  divination.  Here  is  one 
of  them  :  *  When  you  are  about  to  consult  the  oracle 
you  do  not  know  what  is  going  to  happen,  but  you 
do  know  what  sort  of  a  thing,  if  you  be  a  philosopher  ; 
for  if  it  be  one  of  the  things  that  do  not  depend  on 
ourselves,  of  necessity  it  is  neither  good  nor  evil. 
Therefore  do  not  bring  to  the  soothsayer  either 
desire  or  aversion.'1  From  consulting  in  this  in- 
different mood  to  not  consulting  at  all  is  but  a  short 
way.  The  doctrine,  'All  things  outward  indifferent,' 
must  end  in  the  doors  of  the  oracle  being  closed. 
It  does  not  go  so  far  as  Paul's  doctrine,  'All  things 
work  for  good,'  which  is  still  more  hostile  in  spirit 
to  the  practice  of  divination  ;  but  another  saying  of 
Epictetus  shows  that  he  had  reached  that  point  also. 

1  Enchiridion^  cap.  xxxix. 


DIVINATION  167 

It  is :  *  If  the  raven  utter  an  unlucky  cry  do  not  be 
disturbed  ;  you  can  make  all  things  lucky  if  you 
like/1  One  who  has  reached  this  position  is  practi- 
cally a  Christian  in  temper.  There  are  no  unlucky 
days  for  him  ;  he  knows  no  fear  concerning  the 
future.  He  takes  no  thought  for  the  morrow ;  his 
motto  is  that  of  the  Psalmist :  *  My  times  are  in  Thy 
hand/  2  How  completely  Epictetus  had  attained  to 
this  moral  attitude  appears  from  his  answer  to  the 
question,  What  is  ominous  ?  *  Do  we  not  call  those 
things  ominous  which  are  significant  of  coming  evil? 
Then  cowardice  is  ominous,  meansptritedness,  mourn- 
ing, grief,  impudence,'3 

But  of  all  the  sayings  of  the  Phrygian  sage  bear- 
ing on  the  present  topic,  the  most  important  are 
those  in  which  he  defines  a  class  of  things  about 
which  we  may  not  consult  the  diviner.  '  Many  of 
us/  he  says,  '  neglect  many  duties  through  unseason- 
able resort  to  divination.  What  can  the  diviner 
foresee  except  death,  or  danger,  or  disease,  or  some- 
thing of  that  kind  ?  But  if  it  be  my  duty  to  incur 
danger,  or  risk  my  life  for  a  friend,  what  room  is 
there  for  divination?  Have  I  not  a  diviner  within 
which  tells  me  the  nature  of  good  and  evil,  and 
shows  me  the  signs  of  both?  What  need  is  there, 
besides,  for  haruspicy  and  augury?'4  The  use  of 
these  in  such  a  case  he  elsewhere  pronounces  not 

1  Enchiridion ,  cap.  xxiv.  a  Psalm  xxxi.  15. 

1  Discourses,  lib.  iii.  cap.  xxiv.  8.  4  Ibid.,  lib.  ii.  cap.  vii.  I. 


168  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

only  needless,  but  wrong.  '  When  friend  or  country 
has  to  be  defended  with  risk,  do  not  consult  the 
oracle.  For  if  the  prophet  tell  thee  that  the  state 
of  the  entrails  is  inauspicious,  that  points  to  death, 
wounds,  or  exile.  But  after  he  has  spoken,  reason 
has  something  to  say,  viz.,  that  with  friend  and 
country  danger  must  be  faced.  Wherefore  come  to 
the  greater,  Pythian  prophet,  who  thrust  out  of  the 
temple  a  man  who  was  not  willing  to  help  a  friend 
in  danger  of  his  life.'1  In  short,  the  doctrine  of 
this  Stoic  teacher  is :  'In  matters  of  duty  consult 
conscience,  not  the  oracle ;  before  doing  your  duty 
do  not  wish  to  know  whether  there  are  to  be  any 
disagreeable  consequences.'  Cicero  had  already 
taught  the  same  high  lesson.  He  praised  the  man 
who,  when  fidelity  to  a  cause  was  at  stake,  used  the 
auspices  of  virtue  and  did  not  look  to  the  possible 
event,  and  he  laid  down  this  golden  rule  :  duty  is 
to  be  learned  from  virtue  itself,  not  from  auspices.2 

Under  such  teaching  as  that  of  Epictetus,  the 
diviner's  occupation  is  gone.  The  upshot  is  this : 
in  reference  to  matters  of  outward  fortune  it  is 
not  worth  while  consulting  the  diviner ;  in  refer- 
ence to  matters  of  duty  it  is  not  lawful  to  con- 
sult him.  It  is  heroic  doctrine,  and  therein  lies 
the  diviner's  opportunity.  Few,  even  in  Christian 
communities,  have  made  up  their  minds  once  for 
all  to  do  their  duty  whatever  betide.  Many,  before 

1  Enchiridion,  cap.  xxxix.  a  De  Divinatione,  cap.  xxxviL 


DIVINATION  169 

deciding  on  their  line  of  action,  wish  to  know  what 
the  consequences  are  going  to  be.  In  the  old 
Pagan  world  men  of  this  time-serving  type  would 
have  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Delphi  to  get  a  prophetic 
forecast  of  the  future.  In  these  Christian  ages,  when 
the  oracles  have  long  ceased  to  speak,  and  the 
astrologers  and  augurs  are  no  more,  the  worldly- 
wise  man  must  be  his  own  diviner.  He  must  try 
to  guess  the  future  by  a  sagacious  instinct,  or  care- 
fully study  the  signs  of  the  times ;  watch  the  forces 
at  work,  estimate  their  relative  strength,  calculate 
the  probable  resultant,  and,  when  all  this  has  been 
done,  make  up  his  mind  how  he  is  to  act.  In  the 
rule,  what  he  decides  on  is  just  the  opposite  of  what 
he  ought  to  do,  and  would  do  if  he  took  counsel 
with  the  wisdom  that  is  associated  with  moral  sim- 
plicity. Of  course,  he  is  satisfied  in  his  own  mind 
that  no  other  course  was  open  in  accordance  with 
the  dictates  of  prudence.  He  is  the  wise  man  in 
his  own  esteem,  the  man  who  does  the  right  at  all 
hazards  being  the  fool.  He  is  the  world's  wise 
man,  but  not  God's.  He  is  the  Pagan  sage,  not 
the  Christian.  He  lives  on  the  Pagan  level,  and 
takes  the  spirit,  if  not  the  art,  of  the  diviner  for 
his  guide.  That  spirit  will  never  die  out  till  men 
generally  value  worldly  good  less  and  ethical  good 
more.  When  food  and  raiment,  and  all  that  they 
represent,  have  indeed  been  relegated  to  the  second 
place,  then  fortune-telling,  and  fortune-guessing,  and 


170  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

fortune-hunting,  and  fortune-worshipping  will  finally 
disappear. 

With  divination,  say  some  in  our  time,  Providence 
and  Prayer  must  go.  According  to  the  author  of 
an  elaborate  history  of  Divination  in  Antiquity, '  he 
who  believes  in  Providence  and  Prayer  accepts  all 
the  principles  on  which  ancient  divination  rests.'1 
Surely  not  all  the  principles !  Some  of  them,  of 
course,  he  does  accept,  e.g.,  that  there  is  a  god,  and 
that  he  cares  for  man.  These  cover  the  doctrine 
of  Providence  and  Prayer,  but  they  are  not  the 
specific  principles  involved  in  the  theory  of  divina- 
tion. Besides  the  general  truth  of  God's  care  for 
man,  that  theory  assumes  that  the  divine  care,  if 
real,  must  show  itself  by  revealing  to  men  the  secrets 
of  the  future.  That  assumption,  we  have  seen,  is 
very  disputable  for  various  reasons  ;  and,  moreover, 
it  implies  a  false  estimate  of  the  relative  importance 
of  the  good  and  evil  of  outward  lot,  as  compared 
with  the  good  and  evil  of  inward  state.  That  as- 
sumption therefore  must  go.  But  though  it  goes, 
the  more  comprehensive  truth  of  God's  care  for 
man  may  remain,  and  if  it  remain  the  belief  in 
Providence  and  the  practice  of  Prayer  are  justified. 
When  the  theory  of  divination  is  abandoned,  what 
happens  to  that  belief  and  that  practice  is  not  re- 
jection, but  purification  or  transformation.  A  divine 

1  A.  Bouch^-Leclercq,  Histoir*  dc  la  Divination  dans 
vol.  i.  p.  104. 


DIVINATION  171 

care  still  exists,  but  it  shows  itself  in  a  worthier 
way;  petitions  are  still  offered  to  a  benignant 
divinity,  but  for  higher  benefits.  That  Providence 
and  Prayer  must  pass  away  with  Divination  is  as 
little  true  as  that,  with  divination,  everything  of 
the  nature  of  prophecy  must  disappear.  How  far 
from  being  the  case  this  is,  we  know  from  the  history 
of  prophecy  in  Israel.  There  were  diviners  in  Israel 
as  elsewhere.  But  the  time  came  when  the  men  of 
moral  insight  saw  that  their  skill  was  a  pretence 
and  their  arts  mischievous.  What  then  ?  Why,  the 
great  ethical  prophets  appeared,  laughing  to  scorn 
the  diviner  and  all  his  ways,  and  showing  the  people 
a  more  excellent  way  through  their  noble  passion 
for  righteousness,  and  their  grand  doctrine  that  the 
only  path  to  prosperity  was  to  do  God's  will.  Even 
so,  when  the  diviner  has  been  turned  adrift  there 
remains  a  doctrine  of  Providence  which  stands  in 
the  same  relation  to  that  which  was  associated  with 
the  practice  of  divination  as  the  Hebrew  prophet 
bore  to  the  soothsayers  of  the  Semitic  world.  The 
decay  of  divination  signifies,  not  that  belief  in  Pro- 
vidence is  growing  faint,  but  rather  that  it  is  being 
perfected.  Absolute  trust  in  Providence  kills  the 
curiosity  out  of  which  springs  the  diviner's  art.  The 
believer  in  God  is  so  sure  of  His  goodwill  that  he 
does  not  want  to  know  what  is  going  to  happen ; 
enough  for  him  that  all  will  certainly  go  well.  The 
case  of  Prayer  is  similar.  When  divination  ceases, 


17*  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

prayer  for  outward  good  as  the  summum  bonum 
must  certainly  come  to  an  end,  but  not  prayer  in 
every  form.  What  happens  is  that  the  lower,  Pagan 
type  of  prayer  gives  place  to  the  higher,  whose  chief 
desire  is  that  God's  will  may  be  done,  and  that  His 
kingdom  may  come. 

A  concluding  reflection  may  appropriately  be 
added  here.  We  can  now  in  some  measure  under- 
stand what  a  formidable  barrier  the  practice  of 
divination  presented  to  moral  and  religious  progress. 
It  found  men  in  possession  of  crude  ideas  of  God, 
Providence,  and  the  highest  good  and  chief  end  of 
man,  and  its  whole  tendency  was  to  keep  them  from 
getting  any  further.  It  addressed  itself  to  a  secular 
mind,  and  it  worked  steadily  towards  complete  en- 
slavement to  secularity.  Its  power  was  strengthened 
by  its  plausibility.  What  more  natural  than  to  place 
the  summum  bonum  in  earthly  good  fortune;  what 
more  tempting  than  the  wish  to  know  beforehand 
what  sort  of  fortune  the  future  was  to  bring ;  what 
a  willing  ear  those  who  cherished  this  wish  would 
lend  to  men  who  came  to  them  and  said :  '  By  the 
kindness  of  the  gods  we  are  able  to  communicate 
to  you  the  knowledge  you  desiderate ' !  What  weary 
centuries  of  fruitless  experiments  and  disappointed 
hopes  it  would  require  to  convince  men  inclined  to 
believe  in  it  that  the  whole  system  was  an  impos- 
ture! Perhaps  this  result  could  never  have  been 
reached,  unless  a  new  religion  had  come  capable  of 


DIVINATION  173 

lifting  men  at  once  into  a  higher,  purer  world  of 
religious  thought  and  moral  aspiration.  Till  the 
new  faith  came,  anything  that  could  help  to  break 
the  diviner's  evil  spell  was  welcome.  Even  Epi- 
cureanism, with  its  rude  denial  of  divine  care  for 
man,  was  from  that  point  of  view  a  boon.  Better 
no  divine  care  at  all  than  such  a  grovelling  care  as 
the  soothsayers  ascribed  to  the  gods.  The  Epicurean 
denial,  with  all  its  onesidedness,  was  a  relative  and 
beneficent  truth,  sweeping,  away  an  imposing  false- 
hood, and  preparing  human  hearts  for  receiving 
from  another  quarter  an  idea  of  Divine  Providence 
possessing  religious  dignity  and  wholesome  moral 
tendency.  Thanks  to  Christianity,  divination,  speak- 
ing broadly,  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  fact  helps 
us  to  realise  that  the  world  is  actually  advancing  in 
religious  faith  and  moral  practice. 


LECTURE    VI 

THE  HEBREW   PROPHETS 

IN  passing  from  the  subject  of  Divination  to  that 
of  Hebrew  Prophecy  and  its  characteristic  doctrine 
of  Providence,  we  do  not  escape  from  the  world  in 
which  the  spirit  of  soothsaying  bore  sway.  That 
spirit  exercised  an  evil  dominion  over  the  Semitic 
peoples  not  less  than  over  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
from  the  most  ancient  times.  And  Hebrew  pro- 
phecy stood  to  Semitic  divination  in  a  relation 
partly  of  development,  but  mainly  of  uncompromis- 
ing antagonism.  The  prophet  therefore  will  be  all 
the  better  understood  when  he  is  placed  in  the  light 
of  a  contrast  with  his  Pagan  kinsman.  The  picture 
of  the  diviner  already  hangs  on  the  wall ;  let  us 
place  beside  it  that  of  the  seer  of  Israel.  And  as 
the  picture  of  the  Stoic  philosopher  hangs  immedi- 
ately to  the  left  of  the  picture  of  the  diviner,  it  will 
make  our  comparative  study  complete  if  we  allow 
our  eye  to  wander  to  it  also  for  an  instant. 

The  resemblances  and  contrasts  between  the  three 
types  of  men   may  be   broadly  stated  thus.      The 

174 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  175 

Hebrew  prophet  agreed  with  the  diviner  against 
the  Stoic  philosopher  in  attaching  great,  though 
not  supreme,  importance  to  outward  prosperity.  He 
agreed  with  the  Stoic  philosopher  against  the  diviner 
in  attaching  sovereign  value  to  virtue  or  righteous- 
ness. He  differed  from  both  in  regarding  outward 
good  as  dependent  on,  and  attainable  through  and 
only  through,  righteousness 

As  the  Stoics  came  centuries  later  than  the  pro- 
phets, we  do  not  expectxto  find  in  the  pages  of 
the  latter  any  allusions  to  them  and  their  tenets. 
But  as  the  diviner  was  a  contemporary,  and  by 
race  a  kinsman,  of  the  prophet,  we  do  expect  to 
discover  occasional  references  to  him.  We  do  find 
such,  and  they  are  so  frequent  and  so  emphatic 
that  we  are  not  only  entitled  but  bound  to  have 
regard  to  them,  and  to  use  the  class  they  so  freely 
characterise  as  a  foil  to  set  off  by  contrast  the 
thoughts  and  ways  of  the  diviner's  relentless  critic. 

The  diviner  and  the  prophet,  or  to  describe  them 
more  antithetically,  the  old  Pagan  type  of  prophet 
and  the  new  reformed  type,  are  set  in  sharp  ant- 
agonism to  each  other  in  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy. 
The  Hebrew  legislator  is  represented,  in  one  remark- 
able passage,  as  warning  the  people,  conceived  as 
about  to  enter  the  land  of  promise,  against  the 
abominations  they  will  find  prevailing  there.  Of 
these,  two  are  selected  for  special  mention :  human 
sacrifice  and  the  practice  of  divination.  Some  of 


i76  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  forms  under  which  that  practice  was  carried 
on  are  enumerated.  The  black  list  is  as  follows : 
'  There  shall  not  be  found  among  you  any  one  .  .  . 
that  useth  divination,  or  an  observer  of  times,  or 
an  enchanter,  or  a  witch,  or  a  charmer,  or  a  con- 
suiter  with  familiar  spirits,  or  a  wizard,  or  a  necro- 
mancer.'1 What  arts  are  alluded  to  under  these 
various  terms  it  may  be  difficult  precisely  to  deter- 
mine ; 2  but  one  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the 
detailed  enumeration,  as  indicative  of  wide  baleful 
prevalence  at  the  time  when  the  Deuteronomic  code 
took  shape :  that  is  to  say,  according  to  modern 
critics,  in  the  seventh  century  B.C.,  when  Josiah 
reigned  in  Judah,  and  Jeremiah  exercised  his  pro- 
phetic functions.  It  was  the  dark  hour  of  the 
diviner's  power  in  the  Pagan  Semitic  world  ;  and 
that  it  was  not  confined  to  that  world,  but  extended 
its  malign  influence  within  the  pale  of  the  chosen 
people,  may  be  inferred  from  the  anxious  manner 
in  which  evil  commerce  with  the  unholy  thing  is 
interdicted.  'Thou  shalt  not  learn  to  do  after  the 
abominations  of  those  nations';3  i.e.  thou  shalt 
neither  practise  divination  thyself,  nor  consult  the 
diviners  that  swarm  among  thy  heathen  neighbours. 
But  what  then?  Is  the  Deuteronomic  policy  one 
of  mere  suppression  ?  Is  there  to  be  no  substitute 

1  Deuteronomy  xviii.  10-15. 

•  Vide  Driver's  Commentary  on  Deuteronomy,  in  loc. 

9  Deuteronomy  xviii  9. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  177 

for  the  diviner,  no  one  who  shall  in  a  happier  and 
holier  way  satisfy  the  craving  which  gives  the  diviner 
his  chance  of  power  ?  Yes,  a  substitute  is  provided  ; 
the  Prophet  is  his  name,  and  his  prototype  is  Moses. 
'The  Lord  thy  God  will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  Pro- 
phet from  the  midst  of  thee,  of  thy  brethren,  like 
unto  me ;  unto  him  ye  shall  hearken.' l  Unto  him, 
not  unto  those  practisers  of  black  arts  who  mislead 
to  their  hurt  those  who  cop^ult  them,  by  their  pre- 
tended knowledge  of  the  future. 

This  sharp  antithesis  of  itself  suggests  inferences 
as  to  the  characteristics  of  the  new  type  of 
mantis.  He  also  will  be  able  in  his  way  to  divine ; 
that  is,  to  make  shrewd  forecasts  of  the  future.  He 
will  also  use  signs  for  this  purpose.  But  the 
signs  on  which  he  will  base  his  predictions  will 
not  be  those  of  the  heathen  soothsayer.  He  will 
draw  his  significant  tokens,  not  from  the  stars  of 
heaven,  or  from  the  fowls  of  the  air,  or  from  the 
spirits  of  the  dead,  but  from  human  conduct.  'Tell 
me  how  you  live,'  he  will  say  to  those  who  consult 
him, '  and  I  will  tell  you  how  you  will  thrive.'  He 
will  regard  prosperity,  not  as  a  matter  of  luck, 
determinable  beforehand  by  the  skilful  interpreta- 

1  Deuteronomy  xviii.  15.  ' Prophet'  is  to  be  taken  here  as  referring 
to  a  class,  not  to  one  individual,  e.g.  Christ.  The  reference  to  Christ 
may  be  ultimately  justifiable,  but  an  exclusively  Christian  interpreta- 
tion does  away  with  the  whole  point  of  the  statement,  which  consists 
in  a  contrast  between  two  classes  of  men  who  profess  ability  to  reveal 
God's  will  as  to  future  fortune. 

M 


i  ;8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

tion  or  manipulation  of  curious  natural  occurrences, 
but  as  a  matter  of  reward  for  right  behaviour,  in 
accordance  with  a  fixed  moral  order.  Only  when 
thus  conceived  does  the  new  type  of  diviner,  the 
prophet,  present  a  radical  contrast  to  the  old  one, 
such  as  justifies  the  hailing  of  his  advent  as  a  great 
reformation. 

That  our  conjectural  conception  is  correct,  the 
reference  to  Moses  proves.  'A  prophet  like  unto 
me.'  What  sort  of  a  prophet  was  Moses?  The 
long  discourse  in  the  first  eleven  chapters  of  Deuter- 
onomy, forming  a  hortatory  introduction  to  the 
following  body  of  laws,  supplies  the  answer  to  this 
question.  The  burden  of  that  discourse,  put  into 
the  mouth  of  Moses,  is  :  '  Do  God's  will  and  you  will 
prosper.'  The  statutes  of  the  Lord  in  general,  and 
the  Decalogue  in  particular,  are  the  preacher's  text. 
'  Keep  these  statutes,  these  Ten  Words,'  he  says  to 
his  hearers,  '  and  it  will  go  well  with  you  throughout 
all  generations.'  '  It  shall  come  to  pass,  if  ye  shall 
hearken  diligently  unto  my  commandments  which  I 
command  you  this  day,  to  love  the  Lord  your  God, 
and  to  serve  Him  with  all  your  heart  and  with  all 
your  soul,  that  I  will  give  the  rain  of  your  land  in 
its  season,  the  former  rain  and  the  latter  rain,  that 
thou  mayest  gather  in  thy  corn,  and  thy  wine,  and 
thine  oil.  And  I  will  give  grass  in  thy  fields  for  thy 
cattle,  and  thou  shalt  eat  and  be  full.'1  Here  is  a 

1  Deuteronomy  xi.  13-15. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  179 

very  simple  and  definite  programme :  Do  right 
and  ye  shall  fare  well.  This  is  the  doctrine  of 
Moses  as  the  Deuteronomist  conceives  him.  Hence 
the  prophet  after  the  type  of  Moses,  who  is  to 
supersede  the  diviner,  must  be  one  who  teaches  the 
same  doctrine.  He  believes  in  a  connection  between 
conduct  and  lot,  such  that  from  conduct  lot  can  be 
inferred.  Therefore  he  tells  aH^men  that  the  one 
thing  needful  is  to  give  heed  to  their  ways,  to  be 
righteous.  And  it  is  obvious  that  if  he  be  right  the 
diviner's  occupation  is  gone.  The  prophet  after  the 
manner  of  Moses  will  not  only  be  a  great  improve- 
ment on  the  diviner ;  he  will  sweep  the  diviner  and 
all  his  craft  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  To  what  end 
consult  the  omens  if  all  depends  on  conduct? 

The  occasional  utterances  of  the  prophets  of  Israel 
concerning  the  future  fortune  of  their  nation  and 
its  causes  show  how  thoroughly  they  believed  in  the 
creed  ascribed  to  Moses,  and  how  utterly  futile  the 
practices  of  the  soothsayer  appeared  in  their  sight. 
Exhaustive  citation  is  unnecessary  here ;  two  ex- 
amples will  suffice,  one  taken  from  Jeremiah,  the 
other  from  an  older  prophet,  Micah.  Jeremiah  has 
before  his  mind  the  hard  problem  of  Israel's  duty  and 
destiny  in  connection  with  the  overshadowing  power 
of  Babylon.  The  diviners  also,  as  the  prophet 
knows,  are  busy  with  the  problem,  and  they  deal 
with  it  suo  more.  To  king,  princes,  and  all  others 
consulting  them  they  speak  smooth  words,  saying  in 


i8o  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

effect :  '  The  omens  are  favourable  ;  no  need  to  cringe 
to  the  great  despot  of  the  East,  ye  may  defy  him 
with  impunity.'  Jeremiah's  counsel,  on  the  contrary, 
is :  '  Submit  to  the  king  of  Babylon  ;  submission  is 
inevitable,  it  is  the  penalty  of  your  sin ;  and  it  is 
your  wisdom  ;  you  will  fare  worse  if  you  obstinately 
resist  his  power.'  '  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the 
God  of  Israel ;  Let  not  your  prophets  that  be  in 
the  midst  of  you,  and  your  diviners,  deceive  you, 
neither  hearken  ye  to  your  dreams  which  ye  cause 
to  be  dreamed.  For  they  prophesy  falsely  unto  you 
in  my  name.  I  have  not  sent  them,  saith  the  Lord. 
For  thus  saith  the  Lord,  After  seventy  years  be 
accomplished  for  Babylon  I  will  visit  you,  and  per- 
form my  good  word  towards  you,  in  causing  you 
to  return  to  this  place.'1  Micah,  a  contemporary  of 
Amos,  Hosea,  and  Isaiah,  and  representing  their 
point  of  view,  preaches  a  similar  doctrine  and  with 
the  same  conscious  antagonism  to  the  diviners. 
Full  of  power  by  the  spirit  of  the  Lord,  and  of 
judgment  and  of  might,  he  declares  unto  Israel  her 
sin,  and  tells  her  that  while  she  sins  she  must 
suffer,  whatever  diviners  may  say  to  the  contrary. 
These  false  prophets  he  contemptuously  describes 
as  biting  with  their  teeth,  and  crying  peace  ;  in  other 
words,  as  selling  predictions  of  good  fortune  for 
bread  or  money.  As  for  him,  all  the  signs  in  the 
world  cannot  make  him  believe  that  the  ways  of 

1  Jeremiah  xxix.  8-10. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  181 

transgressors  can  conduct  to  any  other  end  than 
disaster.  To  such  as  do  evil  his  stern  message  is  : 
'  Night  shall  be  unto  you,  that  ye  shall  not  have  a 
vision ;  and  it  shall  be  dark  unto  you,  that  ye  shall 
not  divine/1 

As  to  the  other  side  of  the  doctrine  connecting 
lot  with  conduct,  the  great  prophets^of  Israel  were 
equally  well  assured.  They  were  firmly  convinced 
that  while  their  countrymen  walked  in  God's  ways, 
and  in  some  considerable  measure  realised  the  ideal 
of  a  chosen  people,  no  serious  harm  could  come  to 
them.  Isaiah  voiced  the  common  prophetic  senti- 
ment when  he  said :  '  Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a 
foundation  a  stone,  a  tried  stone,  a  precious  corner- 
stone, a  sure  foundation,'2  having  in  his  view  not  so 
much  the  actual  material  fortress,  but  'the  ideal 
Zion,  built  upon  righteousness  and  justice.'8  A 
nation  doing  righteousness  had  no  occasion,  accord- 
ing to  the  prophetic  theory,  to  fear  either  Sen- 
nacheribs  or  soothsayers.  The  daughter  of  Zion 
might  laugh  the  invader*  to  scorn,  and  as  for  the 
fortune-teller,  his  mercenary  lying  arts  were  utterly 
impotent.  '  Surely  there  is  no  enchantment  against 
Jacob,  neither  is  there  any  divination  against  Israel.'5 
These  words  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Balaam,  the 
Aramaean  prophet,  as  a  confession  of  his  inability  to 

1  Micah  iii.  6.  2  Isaiah  xxviii.  16. 

»  Renan,  Histoire  du  Peupk  d?  Israel,  vol.  ii.  p.  522. 

4  Isaiah  xxxvii.  22.  B  Numbers  xxiii.  23. 


i82  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

curse  the  chosen  people.  Critics  may  dispute  their 
authenticity,  and  suggest  that  the  oracles  ascribed  to 
Balaam  in  the  Book  of  Numbers  reflect  not  so  much 
his  thoughts  as  the  self-consciousness  of  the  people  to 
whom  they  refer.1  However  this  may  be,  one  thing 
is  certain,  that  the  particular  oracle  quoted  expresses 
an  important  article  of  the  prophetic  creed.  The 
Hebrew  prophet  believed  that  blessing  and  cursing  did 
not  belong  to  diviners,  but  to  the  moral  order  of  the 
world.  '  Behold,  I  set  before  you  this  day  a  blessing 
and  a  curse  ;  a  blessing,  if  ye  obey  the  command- 
ments of  the  Lord  your  God  ;  .  .  .  a  curse,  if  ye  will 
not  obey  the  commandments  of  the  Lord  yout  God.'2 
The  prophetic  theory  of  Providence  represents  a 
great  advance  of  religious  thought  when  compared 
with  that  which  underlies  the  practice  of  divination. 
Its  supreme  merit  lies  in  its  profoundly  ethical  char- 
acter. It  has  its  origin  in  an  intense  personal  sense, 
on  the  part  of  the  prophet,  of  the  sovereign  worth  of 
righteousness,  and  its  issue  in  a  firm  conviction  that 
righteousness  has  not  only  subjective  but  objective 
value,  is  the  law  not  only  of  the  individual  con- 
science but  of  the  universe.  The  diviner,  as  such, 
shared  neither  the  prophet's  personal  estimate  of 
righteousness  nor  his  conviction  that  justice  and 
judgment  are  the  habitation  of  God's  throne.  He 
assumed  that  to  obtain  good  fortune  was  the  chief 

1  Renan,  Histoire  du  Peuple  (Thrall,  vol.  ii.  p.  45. 
•  Deuteronomy  xi.  26,  27. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  183 

end  of  man,  and  that  the  end  was  attainable  irre- 
spective of  character.  The  system  of  signs  on  which 
he  founded  his  forecasts  had  no  inherent  connection 
with  the  moral  order.  It  was  a  merely  physical 
apparatus  for  determining  the  future ;  skill,  not 
character,  was  required  for  its  interpretation.  And 
as  the  diviner's  knowledge  had  no  connection  with 
personal  morality,  so  the  future  which  he  professed 
to  know  had  no  connection  with  morality  in  the 
recipient  of  the  predicted  fortune.  It  was  a  matter 
of  luck,  not  of  character.  It  might  even  be  obtained 
by  immorality.  The  crown  promised  to  Macbeth  by 
the  witches  was  gained  by  murder;  and  that  is  by 
no  means  the  solitary  instance  in  which  the  fortune- 
teller's predictions  have  found  fulfilment  through 
crime.  If  we  were  to  regard  the  criminal  as  the 
dupe  and  victim  of  designing  persons  more  culp- 
able than  himself,  we  should  in  many  cases  not 
be  far  from  the  truth.  But  without  making  the 
diviner  responsible  for  the  moral  aberrations  of 
his  clients,  we  may  at  least  assert  that  he  pre- 
dicts a  future  which,  he  cannot  but  know,  may  be 
associated  with  crime  as  its  procuring  cause.  He  is 
thus  put  on  his  defence,  and  we  may  conceive  him 
making  for  himself  an  apology  of  this  sort :  *  If 
my  prognostications  should  be  fulfilled  by  crime  I 
cannot  help  it.  What  I  am  responsible  for  is  the 
matter  of  fact.  My  science  enables  me  to  foretell 
certain  events  that  are  to  happen  in  a  particular 


184  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

man's  life,  such  as  that  he  is  to  become  a  king  or  a 
very  wealthy  man.  How  the  result  is  to  be  brought 
about  I  do  not  profess  to  know,  nor,  as  a  diviner,  do 
I  care.  Murder,  fraud,  and  other  crimes  may  lie  on 
the  path  that  conducts  to  the  goal.  The  way  may 
not  be  desirable,  but,  observe,  the  end  is  reached, 
and  my  prescience  is  vindicated.  The  fact  turns 
out  to  be  as  I  predicted.'1  It  is  a  lame  apology, 
but  it  is  the  utmost  that  can  be  said,  and  it  is  a 
virtual  confession  of  the  non-moral,  if  not  of  the 
immoral,  character  of  divination. 

In  the  light  of  this  imaginary  confession  we  can 
see  clearly  how  impossible  it  is  for  any  one  to 
believe  in  divination  who  firmly  grasps  the  truth 
that  morality  has  value  for  the  divine  Being.  It  is 
not  credible  that  a  God  who  cares  for  righteousness 
would  introduce  into  the  frame  of  nature  a  system 
of  signs,  possessing  significance  irrespective  of  moral 
interests.  Such  a  system,  as  has  already  been  ad- 
mitted, may  be  abstractly  possible  from  a  merely 
speculative  point  of  view,  but  in  a  theory  of  the 
universe  which  makes  the  ethical  supreme  it  can 
find  no  place.  The  moral  order  of  the  world  crowds 
out  the  diviner's  order.  It  is  the  abiding  merit  of 
the  Hebrew  prophets  that  they  understood  this 
and  chose  the  better  part.  They  saw  that  there  was 
not  room  in  the  world  for  the  two  orders,  and  they 
preferred  the  order  of  universal  righteousness  to  the 
1  Vide  Lecture  V. 


THE,  HEBREW  PROPHETS  185 

order  of  omnipresent  non-moral  signs;  Their  vision 
was  clear  and  their  preference  decided  because  their 
hearts  were  pure.  The  fundamental  fact  about 
these  seers  of  Israel  is  that  they  were  men  in  whose 
breasts  burned  the  passion  for  righteousness.  Out 
of  this  pure  fountain  sprang,  in  vigorous  flow,  the 
limpid  stream  of  their  religious  faith.  How  easy  for 
men,  with  that  sacred  passion  burning  in  their  souls, 
to  believe  in  a  God  who  loveth  righteousness  and 
hateth  iniquity  !  And  how  natural  for  men  believing 
in  such  a  God  to  seek  and  find  in  human  history 
traces  of  that  divine  love  and  hatred ;  to  see  in  the 
good  and  ill  of  men's  lot  the  reward  and  penalty 
of  righteous  and  unrighteous  conduct!  And  just 
because  the  prophet's  creed  was  the  natural  outcome 
of  his  ethical  spirit,  it  has  a  presumption  of  truth  on 
its  side.  It  is  worthy  to  be  true.  The  passion  for 
righteousness  needs  no  apologist.  It  is  its  own 
witness.  It  is  the  noblest  thing  in  the  world. 
Were  it  universal  it  would  go  far  to  rid  the  world  of 
the  many  curses  under  which  it  groans.  But  this 
noble  passion,  which  needs  no  apology,  is  the  best 
apology  for  the  creed  which  is  congenial  to  it.  It 
demands,  and  therefore  justifies,  faith  in  an  ethical 
deity,  and  in  a  moral  order  revealing  itself  in  the 
lives  of  men  and  nations. 

But  how  stands  the  fact?  Is  the  order  of  the 
world  as  moral  as  the  prophetic  theory  requires  ? 
Are  there  not  many  things  which  seem  to  show  that 


1 86  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  lot  of  men  is  merely  a  matter  of  good  or  evil 
fortune,  and  that  events  happen  either  in  accordance 
with  a  purely  physical  fate  or  by  an  utterly  incal- 
culable, inexplicable  fortuity  ?  And,  if  the  order  of 
the  world  be  so  non-moral  in  appearance,  what 
guarantee  is  there  that  the  universe  is  not  presided 
over  by  a  non-moral  deity  ?  The  phenomena  which 
raise  such  anxious  questions  did  not  escape  pro- 
phetic observation.  How  could  they?  The  pheno- 
mena are  not  new,  a  mere  peculiarity  of  exceptional 
modern  experience.  They  are  as  old  as  the  world, 
and  must  always  have  been  noticed  by  every  person 
of  ordinary  discernment,  not  to  speak  of  men  of  rare 
moral  insight,  like  the  prophets.  Just  because  they 
intensely  desired  that  the  moral  order  should  be 
perfect,  the  prophets  would  be  keenly  sensitive  to 
everything  that  seemed  to  contradict  their  theory. 
It  is,  of  course,  a  too  common  infirmity  to  shut  the 
eyes  to  unwelcome  facts,  or  to  interpret  them  in 
harmony  with  theory.  In  the  case  before  us  that 
would  mean  reasoning  back  from  lot  to  conduct,  so 
inferring  goodness  from  prosperity  and  wickedness 
from  adversity.  A  pedantic  theorist  might  do  that, 
but  hardly  a  Hebrew  prophet.  He  was  much  more 
likely  to  feel  acutely  the  pressure  of  the  problem 
arising  out  of  antagonism  between  theory  and  experi- 
ence, and  to  be  as  one  walking  in  darkness,  simply 
trusting  when  he  could  not  see.  For  a  time,  indeed, 
the  problem  might  not  exist  in  an  acute  form  even 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  187 

for  a  prophet.  The  attention  might  be  directed 
chiefly  to  broad  aspects  of  providence  confirmatory 
of  theory,  and  facts  of  an  opposite  character  might 
be  simply  overlooked,  or  there  might  not  happen  to 
be  any  such  of  a  very  arresting  nature.  But  when 
once  the  problem  had  fairly  announced^fself,  and  be- 
come a  subject  of  reflection,  it  would  create  a  sense 
of  ever-deepening  perplexity,  leaving  the  prophetic 
mind  no  rest  till  it  had  found  some  clue  to  the 
mystery.  The  faith  of  the  earlier  prophet  might 
thus  be  comparatively  confident  and  cheerful,  while 
that  of  his  brother  belonging  to  a  later  generation 
might  be  overshadowed  with  doubt,  and  for  a  third 
seer  of  a  still  later  time  the  darkness  might  pass  into 
the  dawn  of  a  new  light  upon  the  very  phenomena 
which  had  brought  on  the  eclipse  of  faith. 

Such  differences  in  mood  can  be  discerned  in  the 
prophetic  writings ;  when  we  compare,  e.g.  Isaiah 
with  Jeremiah,  and  with  the  unknown  prophet  of 
the  Exile  whose  oracles  form  the  later  half  of  the 
canonical  Book  of  Isaiah.  In  their  respective  views 
concerning  the  providential  order  these  three  pro- 
phets are  related  to  each  other  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  the  three  great  tragic  poets  of  Greece. 
Isaiah,  like  ^Eschylus,  has  an  unclouded  faith  in  the 
retributive  justice  of  God  ;  Jeremiah,  like  Sophocles, 
believes  devoutly  in  the  moral  order,  but  not  without 
a  keen  perception  of  the  mysterious,  inexplicable 
element  in  human  life ;  the  prophet  of  the  Exile,  like 


i88  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Euripides,  sees  in  the  sufferings  of  the  good,  whereof 
Jeremiah  had  complained,  not  merely  a  dark  fate, 
but  an  experience  that  is  turned  into  a  joy  for 
the  sufferer  when  he  accepts  it  as  incidental  to  a 
redemptive  vocation.1 

For  the  first  of  these  prophets,  the  sphere  within 
which  divine  justice  displays  itself  is  the  nation  as  a 
whole.  His  firm  conviction  is  that  the  nation  which 
does  God's  will  shall  prosper,  and  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  nation  which  fails  to  do  God's  will  can- 
not prosper.  His  theory  is  formulated  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  book  which  bears  his  name  in  these 
precise  terms :  '  If  ye  be  willing  and  obedient,  ye 
shall  eat  the  good  of  the  land ;  but  if  ye  refuse  and 
rebel,  ye  shall  be  devoured  with  the  sword.'2  The 
actual  moral  state  of  Israel  when  Isaiah  uttered  his 
prophecies  was  such  as  to  demand  insistence  mainly 
on  the  latter  of  these  alternatives ;  but  the  prophet 
had  equal  faith  in  the  validity  of  the  other,  given 
the  requisite  moral  conditions.  When  the  spirit  of 
righteousness  was  poured  out  upon  the  community, 
there  would  come  a  happy  change  in  the  social  state 
comparable  to  the  transformation  of  a  wilderness 
into  a  fruitful  field.  'The  work  of  righteousness 
shall  be  peace  ;  and  the  effect  of  righteousness  quiet- 
ness and  assurance  for  ever.  And  my  people  shall 
dwell  in  a  peaceable  habitation,  and  in  sure  dwellings, 
and  in  quiet  resting-places.'8  Other  prophets  of  the 

»  Vide  Lecture  III.  *  Isaiah  i.  19,  20.        »  Ibid,  xxxii.  17,  18. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  189 

same  period  say  the  same  thing.  The  message  of 
Amos  to  his  countrymen  is,  *  Seek  ye  the  Lord, 
and  ye  shall  live,'  or  alternatively,  '  Seek  good,  and 
not  evil,  that  ye  may  live,' *  the  life  promised 
including  all  that  makes  for  national  wellbeing. 
Hosea  reveals  his  faith  in  the  cerfainty  of  the 
connection  between  conduct  and  lot  in  national 
experience  by  employing  the  figure  of  sowing 
and  reaping  to  convey  his  thought.  'They  have 
sown  the  wind,  and  they  shall  reap  the  whirl- 
wind.'2 'Sow  to  yourselves  in  righteousness,  reap 
in  mercy.'8 

A  hundred  years  later  an  altered  tone  is  observ- 
able. The  prophetic  temper  has  become  less  buoyant 
and  hopeful,  more  sombre  and  dubitating.  The 
change  may  have  been  in  part  an  effect  of  the  sore 
discouragement  inflicted  on  the  loyal  worshippers  of 
Jehovah  during  the  long,  sinister  reign  of  Manasseh, 
by  whom  all  the  interests  dear  to  the  heart  of  his 
father  Hezekiah  were  treated  with  ungodly  and 
unfilial  contempt.  The  very  length  of  that  reign, 
as  compared  with  the  duration  of  the  one  preceding, 
was  of  itself  a  trial  of  faith  in  Providence.  The 
godly  father  reigns  only  twenty-nine  years,  dying 
at  the  early  age  of  fifty-four ;  the  unworthy  philo- 
pagan  son  wears  his  crown  for  the  exceptionally 
long  period  of  fifty-five  years.  What  a  blow  to  the 
sacred  interests  of  religion  and  morality,  and  how 

1  Amos  v.  6,  14.  2  Hosea  viii'.  7.  3  Ibid.  x.  12. 


190  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

hard  to  explain  on  the  hypothesis  that  Jehovah  cares 
for  the  right.  That  dreary  half-century  of  misrule 
was  an  evil  time  for  the  faithful  in  the  land.  For 
them  there  was  nothing  but  the  cold  shade  of 
neglect  or  the  fire  of  persecution,  the  royal  favour 
being  reserved  for  those  who  obsequiously  followed 
a  bad  example.  The  anavim,  the  poor  afflicted  ones 
of  those  dismal  years,  would  be  forced  by  their  own 
experience  to  meditate  on  a  comparatively  new  pro- 
blem, the  reality  of  a  Providence  in  the  individual 
life.  That  the  divine  care  for  the  right  should  show 
itself  there  also,  as  well  as  in  the  nation  at  large,  was 
a  very  natural  thought.  Still  more  natural  was  it  to 
expect  that  the  divine  care  should  show  itself  there 
at  least,  when  it  was  not  apparent  anywhere  else. 
Hence  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  in  the  pages 
of  Jeremiah  the  fortunes  of  the  individual  righteous 
man  have  become  a  prominent  subject  of  reflection. 
These  fortunes,  in  the  case  of  Jeremiah  himself,  not 
less  than  in  the  case  of  the  like-minded  of  a  previous 
generation,  were  of  a  distressing  character ;  hence 
the  urgency  with  which  he  asks  the  question, '  Where- 
fore doth  the  way  of  the  wicked  prosper?'1  It  is  a 
question  which  he  cannot  answer.  He  is  simply 
astonished  that  prosperity  should  so  often  be  on  the 
wrong  side ;  bad  men  faring  as  if  God  loved  them, 
good  men  faring  as  if  God  hated,  or  at  least  cared 
not,  for  them. 

1  Jeremiah  xiL  I. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  191 

The  matter  could  not  end  there.  Deep  thought 
on  so  vital  a  theme  must  issue  in  one  or  other  of  two 
results.  Either  the  theory  of  a  righteous  Providence 
must  be  abandoned  as  untenable,  or  the  sufferings  of 
righteous  men  must  be  discovered  to  serve  some 
good  purpose  in  harmony  with  the  supposed  aim  of 
Providence.  In  the  golden  oracles  of  the  unknown 
prophet  of  the  Exile  we  find  the  dialectic  process 
coming  to  rest  in  the  latter  of  these  alternatives. 
The  fifty-third  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah  is  the 
classic  formulation  of  the  new  doctrine.  A  question 
vividly  expressing  the  marvellous  nature  of  the  state- 
ment about  to  be  made  forms  an  appropriate  prelude. 
1  Who  hath  believed  our  report  ? '  asks  the  prophet, 
not  by  way  of  complaint  that  no  one  believes,  for  no 
one  but  himself  yet  knows  what  he  is  going  to  say, 
but  by  way  of  hinting  that  what  he  is  about  to 
declare  is  of  so  unheard-of  a  character  that  surprise 
and  incredulity  on  first  hearing  will  be  very  excus- 
able. '  Who  can  credit  what  I  am  going  to  tell  ?  it  is 
a  great  wonder ;  listen ! '  And  what  then  is  the 
wonder  ?  Is  it  that  the  righteous  servant  of  Jehovah 
is  a  great  sufferer  ?  No !  that  for  a  good  while,  ever 
since  the  evil  days  of  King  Manasseh,  has  been  a 
familiar  commonplace,  known  to  all  men  through  the 
unwritten  tradition  of  the  sorrow  of  pious  forefathers, 
and  through  the  outspoken  complaints  of  Jeremiah. 
Not  that  the  servant  of  Jehovah  suffers  is  the  marvel, 
but  that  through  suffering  he  passes  into  world-wide 


192  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

renown.1  The  glory  that  is  to  follow  the  suffering, 
not  the  suffering  in  itself,  is  the  main  theme  of  the 
prophecy.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  picture  of 
the  man  of  sorrow,  exhibiting  in  sombre  colours  the 
tragic  details  of  his  woful  experience,  is  what  chiefly 
catches  the  eye  of  the  reader.  But  the  prophetic 
artist  spends  his  strength  here  not  merely  to  elicit 
the  sympathetic  exclamation,  How  great  a  sufferer ! 
but  to  communicate  insight  into  the  source  and  the 
issue  of  the  suffering.  Three  things  he  desires  to 
teach  those  who  can  understand  :  that  the  suffering 
of  the  righteous  one  is  due  to  the  sin  of  the  unright- 
eous ;  that  there  shall  be  a  great  reversal  of  fortune 
for  the  sufferer,  humiliation  passing  into  exaltation  ; 
and  that  those  who  made  him  suffer  will  participate 
in  the  honour  and  felicity  awaiting  him.  '  He  was 
wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for 
our  iniquities';  'Jehovah  hath  laid  on  him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all ' 2 — there  is  the  first  lesson.  '  There- 
fore will  I  divide  him  a  portion  with  the  great,  and 
he  shall  divide  the  spoil  with  the  strong'3 — there  is 
the  second.  '  He  bare  the  sin  of  many,  and  made 
intercession  for  the  transgressors'4  —  there  is  the 
third.  When  these  three  truths  are  taken  together, 
light  dawns  on  the  connection  between  the  suffering 
and  the  subsequent  glory,  the  humiliation  and  the 

1  Vide  B.  Duhm,  Das  Buck  fesata,  p.  367.  Duhm  thinks  that  the 
servant  of  Jehovah  prophecies,  including  Isaiah  lii.  13-liii.  12  are  post- 
exilian. 

•  Isaiah  liii.  5.  »  Ibid.  liii.  12.  4  Ibid.  liii.  12. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  193 

exaltation.  It  is  seen  to  be  a  connection  not  merely 
of  sequence  but  of  causality,  the  exaltation  having 
its  root  in  the  humiliation.  For  what  is  the  state  of 
humiliation  ?  Viewed  from  the  outside,  it  is  simply 
the  state  of  one  very  miserable :  despised  of  men, 
stricken,  abandoned,  cursed  by  God.  Btft  from  the 
prophet's  point  of  view  it  is  the  state  of  one  who 
suffers  unjustly  through  the  sin  of  the  very  men 
who  despise  him,  and  who  is  all  the  while,  in  spite 
of  appearances  to  the  contrary,  not  the  accursed,  but 
the  beloved  servant  of  Jehovah.  It  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time  when  the  prophetic  view  will  be  accepted 
as  the  true  one.  And  when  that  time  arrives  the 
great  reversal  shall  have  begun.  The  new  view  of 
the  old  fact,  embodied  in  the  confession,  'surely  he 
hath  borne  our  griefs,'1  will  bring  about  the  grand 
transformation  :  the  despised  one  taking  his  place 
among  the  great,  and  winning  divine  favour  even  for 
the  unworthy. 

Such,  in  meagre  outline,  is  the  import  of  this 
unique  oracle  concerning  the  redemptive  virtue  of 
the  sufferings  of  the  good.  The  use  made  of  it  by 
Christian  theologians,  following  apostolic  example, 
to  express  the  significance  of  Christ's  death,  is  well 
known.  That  use  has  its  own  rationale,  but  it  does 
not  concern  us  here.  We  have  to  take  this  sublime 
utterance  of  an  unknown  Hebrew  prophet,  not  as 
a  miraculous  anticipation  of  the  theological  theory 

1  Isaiah  liii.  4. 
N 


i94  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  atonement,  but  as  a  vital  part  of  the  prophetic 
doctrine  of  Providence.  It  is  an  attempt  at  a 
solution  of  the  problem :  How  are  the  sufferings  of 
the  righteous  to  be  explained  and  justified,  so  that 
they  may  no  longer  be  a  stumbling-block  to  faith 
in  a  righteous  providential  order  ?  As  such  it  must 
be  understood  as  of  universal  application.  It  is  the 
announcement  of  a  general  law,  not  the  explanation 
of  one  exceptional  case  coming  under  no  general 
law  of  the  moral  world.  Whether  the  prophet  had 
a  dim  vision  of  One  in  whose  unique  experience 
should  be  absolutely  realised  his  ideal  picture  of 
the  Man  of  Sorrow  is  a  question  which  cannot  be 
authoritatively  answered.  In  any  case,  it  may  safely 
be  assumed  that  there  were  phenomena  belonging 
to  his  own  age  to  which  he  deemed  the  language  of 
this  oracle  applicable  :  a  suffering  servant  of  Jehovah, 
collective  or  individual,  whose  strange  tragic  experi- 
ence could  be  made  intelligible  and  even  acceptable 
to  a  believer  in  a  Divine  Providence  by  investing  it 
with  redemptive  virtue.  It  may  further  be  assumed 
that  he  would  have  used  the  same  key  to  unlock  the 
mystery  of  righteousness  suffering,  in  whatever  time 
or  place  it  might  make  its  appearance.  Every 
instance  of  the  kind  demanded  explanation,  in  his 
judgment,  because  on  the  face  of  it  it  seemed,  of 
all  the  dark  facts  of  human  life,  the  one  most  in- 
compatible with  earnest  faith  in  the  righteousness 
of  God.  It  is  such  faith,  deep-rooted  in  his  soul, 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  195 

that  has  set  his  mind  to  brood  on  the  facts  which 
seem  to  give  it  the  lie,  as  he  sits  in  sad  exile  by 
the  rivers  of  Babylon.  And  here  at  last  is  the 
solution  which  brings  rest  and  joy  to  his  spirit : 
To  every  suffering  servant  of  God  are  appointed 
ample  compensations ;  not  merely  a  hagpy  change 
of  outward  personal  fortune,  as  in  the  case  of  Job, 
but  the  power  of  bringing  blessing  to  a  world  un- 
worthy of  him,  whose  ignorance  and  perversity  have 
been  the  cause  of  all  his  woes. 

This  great  thought  is  a  splendid  illustration  of  the 
power  of  strong  faith  in  a  providential  order  to  give 
birth  to  new  fruitful  ideas.  It  is  not  a  solitary 
example  of  its  fertility.  The  whole  group  of 
prophetic  oracles  usually  designated  'Messianic* 
may  be  regarded  as  a  fruitage  springing  out  of 
that  faith  as  its  seed.  To  this  class  belong  those 
pictures  of  a  better  national  future  which  abound 
in  the  pages  of  Isaiah,  predicting  a  time  when, 
under  a  king  reigning  in  righteousness,  the  people 
will  also  be  righteous  and  therefore  happy.1  These 
bright  pictures  of  a  time  when  God's  providential 
action  will  take  the  form  of  blessing  the  good  have 
all  to  be  relegated  to  the  future,  because  the  present 
is  prevalently  bad,  and  affords  scope  mainly  for  the 
punitive  display  of  divine  righteousness.  That 
there  will  ever  be  such  a  happy  time  is  a  matter  of 
faith  for  the  prophet.  But  it  is  an  essential  part 

1  Isaiah  xi.  and  xxxii. 


196  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  his  creed.  For  he  cannot  but  feel  that  a  divine 
Ruler  who  never  does  anything  but  punish  is  a  very 
unsatisfactory  object  of  worship.  The  theory  of  a 
righteous  government  of  God  in  the  world  can 
command  acceptance  only  when  there  is  a  supply 
of  illustrations  on  both  sides.  If  there  are  no 
beneficent  exemplifications  in  the  present  or  the 
past,  they  must  be  forthcoming  in  the  future.  In 
the  future  accordingly  they  are  placed  by  the 
believing  imagination  of  the  prophet.  In  the 
future  of  this  present  world,  for  that,  not  a  world 
to  come  beyond  the  grave,  was  the  object  of  the 
Hebrew  prophet's  hope.  He  believed  that  there 
would  come  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  people 
of  Israel  when  it  would  be  possible  for  God  to 
show  Himself  on  a  grand  scale  as  the  rewarder  of 
righteousness  by  inaugurating  a  state  of  general 
felicity. 

This  good  time  coming  might,  for  a  while,  appear 
an  object  of  reasonable  expectation  even  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  things.  Why  should  there  not 
come  a  day  when  an  instructed  people  like  Israel 
should  begin  with  one  heart  to  seek  the  Lord  and 
to  do  His  will,  and  so  at  length  obtain  the  long- 
deferred  blessing  ?  Times  did  vary  for  better  as 
well  as  for  worse ;  why  should  there  not  arrive  a 
time  of  general  and  signal  goodness,  when  it  might 
be  said  without  much  exaggeration  that  all  the 
people  were  righteous  ?  But  when  generation  after 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  197 

generation  had  passed  without  the  golden  age 
making  its  appearance,  when  what  at  first  promised 
to  fulfil  hope  had  turned  out  a  chilling  disappoint- 
ment, when  the  lapse  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
from  the  time  when  Isaiah  uttered  his  oracles  of  the 
mountain  of  the  Lord's  house,  and  the  rod  out  of  the 
stem  of  Jesse,  had  brought,  not  a  millennium  but  a 
Babylonian  captivity,  then  men  might  begin  to 
reason  to  an  opposite  intent  and  say  :  Since  the  good 
time  has  been  so  long  in  coming,  what  ground  is 
there  for  thinking  it  will  ever  come  at  all?  Such 
seems  to  have  been  the  mood  of  Jeremiah  when  he 
uttered  the  famous  oracle  of  the  New  Covenant. 
Only  that  oracle  is  not  the  expression  of  doubt 
pure  and  simple,  but  of  faith  victorious  over  doubt, 
arguing  in  this  wise :  '  There  is  indeed  no  hope  of 
the  good  time  coming  in  the  natural  course  of  things. 
One  might  indeed  expect  the  captives  to  return  from 
Babylon  taught  wisdom  effectually  by  a  ,  severe 
lesson ;  but  there  is  too  much  reason  to  fear  that 
the  exiles  will  come  back  only  to  repeat  the  follies 
of  their  fathers,  possibly  in  a  new  and  worse  form. 
Yet  God's  purpose  in  Israel's  election  cannot  fail ; 
there  must  be  a  people  on  the  earth  keeping  His 
commandments  and  reaping  the  appropriate  reward. 
How  can  this  be?  Only  on  the  footing  of  a  new 
Covenant.  The  law  must  be  written  on  the  heart,  not 
merely  on  tables  of  stone,  so  that  men  shall  not  only 
know  their  duty  but  be  disposed  and  enabled  to  do 


198  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

it.  Yea,  and  the  law  shall  be  written  on  the  heart  1 
The  time  will  come  when  that  greater  boon,  eclipsing 
the  achievement  at  Sinai,  shall  be  bestowed.' 

Here  was  a  great,  bold,  romantic  idea  born  of 
faith  tried  by  doubt,  a  new  hope  springing  out  of 
despair.  Even  if  it  were  only  a  sweet  dream,  as  the 
prophet's  own  description  of  the  thoughts  which 
filled  his  mind  at  that  season  might  suggest,1  yet 
it  would  be  worthy  to  be  regarded  with  reverence 
as  one  of  the  noblest  dreams  that  ever  visited  the 
mind  of  man.  It  was  a  dream  possible  only  for 
one  who,  with  all  his  heart  and  soul,  desired  God's 
will  to  be  done,  and  believed  that  will  to  have  for 
its  supreme  object  righteousness.  It  was  a  dream 
inevitable  for  one  cherishing  such  a  desire  and  such 
a  faith.  For  if  there  be  truth  in  the  Hebrew  idea 
of  God  as,  before  all,  an  ethical  being,  righteousness 
must  be  forthcoming  in  this  world  somehow.  God 
cannot  be  conceived  as  cherishing  an  impotent 
desire  for  a  thing  supremely  good  in  itself,  but 
beyond  His  reach.  Either  He  does  not  care  for  the 
right,  or  the  right  will  enter  into  the  world  of  reality. 
If  one  means  of  bringing  it  about  does  not  suffice, 
another  must  be  tried.  Let  Sinai,  with  its  stone 
tablets,  if  you  will,  be  the  first  experiment,  but  if  it 
fail,  then  we  must  have  the  new  Covenant  with  its 
law  written  on  the  heart.  You  may,  with  some 

1  Jeremiah  xxxi.  26 :  '  Upon  this  I  awaked,  and  beheld ;  and  my 
•leep  was  sweet  unto  me.' 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  199 

call  that  idea  of  Jeremiah's,  and  the  whole  apparatus 
of  Messianic  prophecy,  extra  belief >  Aberglaube^  or,  in 
plain  terms,  superstition.  For  naturalistic  agnosti- 
cism it  can  be  nothing  else.  But  the  prophets  raise 
a  clear  issue,  and  we  must  face  the  alternatives. 
If  God's  chief  end  in  this  world  be  the  reign  of 
righteousness,  then  a  Messianic  King  and  a  Messianic 
Kingdom,  and  the  law  written  on  the  heart  as  a 
means  towards  its  realisation,  are  natural  corollaries. 
If  these  things  are  mere  unrealisable  ideals,  then  the 
prophetic  idea  of  God  and  of  Providence  was  a  great, 
though  a  creditable,  mistake.  There  is  no  God  who 
cares  for  righteousness,  no  Providence  having  for  its 
supreme  aim  the  establishment  of  a  kingdom  of  the 
good. 

There  are  some  who  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that 
the  prophetic  idea  of  God  and  of  Providence  was  a 
mistake.  I  cannot  accept  this  view.  In  saying  this, 
however,  I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  the  prophetic 
theory  of  Providence  was  without  defects.  The 
prophet  had  the  defects  of  his  qualities,  among 
which  three  may  be  specified. 

I.  The  first  of  these  defects  was  a  tendency  to 
assert  in  an  extreme  or  crude  form  the  connection 
between  the  physical  order  and  the  moral  order  of 
the  world.  That  a  close  connection  exists  between 
these  two  orders  must  be  held  by  all  who  believe 
in  Divine  Providence.  This  faith  postulates  that 
physical  facts  and  laws  shall  serve  moral  ends.  But 


200  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

in  the  application  of  that  general  principle  we  must 
be  on  our  guard  against  setting  up  arbitrary  relations, 
by  attaching  every  event  in  the  physical  world  to 
some  particular  action  or  habit  in  the  moral  world  as 
its  reward  or  penalty.  The  moral  government  of 
God,  as  Butler  long  ago  pointed  out,  does  not  consist 
of  a  number  of  single,  unconnected  acts  of  distributive 
justice  and  goodness,  but  is  a  vast  connected  scheme 
which  can  only  be  imperfectly  comprehended,  and 
ought  therefore  to  be  cautiously  interpreted.  No 
one  duly  mindful  of  this  truth  would  feel  warranted 
in  regarding  seasonable  rains  and  good  crops  as  sure 
marks  of  divine  favour  towards  a  virtuous  community, 
and  disastrous  storms  as  the  unquestionable  sign  and 
punishment  of  prevalent  misconduct.  It  cannot  justly 
be  affirmed  that  the  Hebrew  prophets  indulged  in 
such  superficial  logic.  They  reasoned,  indeed,  with 
confidence,  from  conduct  to  lot,  present  or  prospec- 
tive, but  they  did  not  reason  with  equal  confidence 
from  lot  to  conduct.  They  were  kept  from  doing  so, 
partly  through  the  keenness  of  their  moral  percep- 
tions, partly  through  well-balanced  views  of  the 
character  of  God.  They  did  not  need  outward 
events  to  tell  them  who  were  good  men,  and  who 
bad  ;  they  could  discern  between  the  righteous  and 
the  wicked  by  direct  spiritual  insight.  And  they 
were  forced  to  acknowledge  that  those  whom  they 
perceived  to  be  good  did  not  always  fare  well,  and 
that  those  whom  they  perceived  to  be  evil  did  not 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  *ot 

always  fare  ill.  Long  life,  e.g.  a  highly  valued 
blessing,  was  not,  they  could  see,  a  monopoly  of  the 
godly.  The  godly  Hezekiah  did  not  live  much  more 
than  half  his  days,  while  his  godless  son,  Manasseh, 
reached  a  comparatively  old  age.  Then/  well-in- 
structed conceptions  of  the  divine  character  also 
preserved  the  prophet  from  adopting  blindly  the 
precarious  logic  of  events.  They  knew  that  God 
was  patient  as  well  as  righteous,  and  that  He  dealt 
with  no  man  after  his  sins.  In  view  of  that  truth 
prosperity  could  not  be  certainly  interpreted  as  a 
sign  of  goodness ;  it  might  only  mean  that,  in  any 
particular  instance,  God  was  'slow  to  anger,  and 
plenteous  in  mercy.' 

Nevertheless,  it  may  be  admitted  that  there  was 
a  tendency  in  the  prophetic  mind  to  assert  with 
excessive  emphasis  the  connection  between  conduct 
and  lot,  as  if  the  two  categories  covered  each  other, 
and  the  character  of  either  might  be  inferred  from 
that  of  the  other.  Moses,  as  represented  by  the 
Deuteronomist,  confidently  promises  to  Israel  heark- 
ening diligently  to  God's  commandments,  'the  first 
rain  and  the  latter  rain/1  and  when  a  dearth  happens 
Jeremiah  appears  to  take  for  granted  that  it  is  a 
divine  visitation  for  sin.2  Without  seeming  to  dis- 
parage the  prophets,  we  may  acknowledge  frankly 
that  they  did  not  grasp  firmly,  and  apply  con- 
sistently, the  truth  proclaimed  by  Jesus  in  the 

1  Deuteronomy  xi.  14.  a  Jeremiah  xiv. 


202  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Sermon  on  the  Mount  that  God  'maketh  His  sun 
to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain 
on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust.' l  In  that  respect  the 
great  ones  of  the  Old  Testament  come  far  behind 
the  greater  Teacher  who  speaks  to  us  in  the  New. 

2.  A  second  characteristic  defect  of  the  prophets 
was  a  tendency  to  lay  a  onesided  emphasis  on  the 
punitive  action  of  divine  providence.  They  placed 
judgment  above  mercy.  The  'day  of  Jehovah'  in 
the  prophetic  dialect  meant  chiefly  a  day  of  judg- 
ment. This  was  not  due  to  any  ignoble  vice  of 
temper ;  it  was  rather  an  infirmity  arising  out  of  the 
passion  for  righteousness.  The  prophet  loved  right 
so  intensely  that  he  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  evil. 
4  Away  with  it ! '  he  exclaimed  impatiently,  '  let  the 
stormy  wind  of  divine  judgment  sweep  it  off  the 
face  of  the  earth.'  Then  unhappily  evil  was  usually 
more  plentiful  than  good.  What  the  prophet  longed 
to  see,  justice  and  mercy,  was  too  often  conspicuous 
by  its  absence.  Can  we  wonder  if,  weary  to  death 
of  the  monotonous  dominion  of  bad  custom,  the 
devotee  of  righteousness  gave  utterance  in  grim 
tones  to  the  sentiment,  'Let  the  sinners  be  con- 
sumed out  of  the  earth,  and  let  the  wicked  be  no 
more.'1  Then  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  the 
theatre  of  divine  justice  for  the  prophet  was  this 
present  world.  He  did  not  relegate  the  guerdons 
of  good  and  evil  to  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  and  take 

1  Matthew  T.  45.  *  Psalm  civ.  35. 


THE  HEBREW  PROPHETS  203 

philosophically  the  prevalence  of  any  amount  of 
moral  confusion  in  the  present  life.  He  desired  to 
see  divine  justice  and  goodness  now,  in  the  land  of 
the  living.  And  when  he  did  not  see  them,  when 
especially  justice  tarried  long,  and  Vickedness 
flourished  like  a  green  bay  tree,  he  was  wroth, 
and  demanded  a  judgment  day  in  terms  fierce 
and  peremptory,  sounding  possibly  to  our  delicate 
modern  ears  savage  and  brutal.  This  was  partly 
his  merit,  partly  also  his  weakness.  It  was  the 
infirmity  of  John  the  Baptist,  who  could  not  imagine 
the  Christ  coming  without  the  axe  of  judgment  to 
cut  down  barren  fruit-trees.  John  was  great  in 
his  holy  rage  against  sin,  but  also  little ;  the  least 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  greater  than  he. 

3.  One  other  defect  of  the  prophets  remains  to 
be  mentioned.  It  is  the  tendency  to  attach  too 
much  value  to  outward  good  and  ill  as  the  reward 
and  penalty  of  conduct.  Herein  they  went  to  the 
opposite  extreme  from  the  Stoics.  The  Stoics 
reckoned  outward  good  and  ill  matters  of  indiffer- 
ence ;  to  the  Hebrew  prophet,  on  the  other  hand, 
these  things  appeared  almost  the  summum  bomim 
and  the  summum  malum.  Such  a  view  reveals 
moral  crudity,  for  the  thoroughly  instructed  con- 
science cannot  possibly  attach  so  high  a  value  to 
anything  external.  It  also  creates  difficulty  for  one 
who  desires  earnestly  to  believe  in  a  providential 
order.  For  character  and  outward  lot  are  not  so 


*64  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

uniformly  correspondent  as  theory  requires.  The 
theory  that  God  loves  the  righteous  and  hates  the 
wicked  breaks  down  unless  marks  of  divine  favour 
and  disfavour  can  be  found  elsewhere  than  in  external 
experience.  That  it  is  ever  well  with  the  good 
man  can  be  maintained  only  when  felicity  is  placed 
within,  and  made  to  consist  in  what  a  man  is,  not 
in  what  he  has.  At  this  point  the  doctrine  of  Jesus 
shows  a  great  advance  as  compared  with  that  of 
Hebrew  prophecy.  In  the  Gospels  the  method  of 
outwardness  gives  place  to  the  method  of  inward- 
ness, and  goodness  becomes  its  own  reward.  Out- 
ward good  has  still  some  value.  But  it  is  secondary, 
not  primary ;  a  means  to  an  end,  not  an  end  in  itself. 
And  outward  ill  can  serve  spiritual  ends  as  well  as 
outward  good,  nay,  even  in  a  higher  degree.  A  man 
may  have  cause  to  rejoice  in  tribulation  more  than 
in  wealth,  or  health,  or  length  of  days. 

To  this  purer  vision  Hebrew  prophets  did  not 
attain,  though  some  came  near  to  it,  e.g.  Habakkuk, 
when  he  sang  his  triumphant  song,  'Although  the 
fig  tree  shall  not  blossom.'1  But  though  they  fell 
short,  their  very  limitations  rendered  service  to  the 
higher  faith,  They  did  the  utmost  possible  for  their 
own  theory,  and  prepared  the  way  for  a  better  by 
making  it  manifest  that,  on  their  view  of  the  con- 
nection between  lot  and  conduct,  the  problem  of 
Providence  was  insoluble. 

1  Habakkuk  ill.  17-19. 


THE  HEBREW 

While  frankly  acknowledging  these  defects,  we 
must  not  permit  them  to  blind  our  minds  to  the 
inestimable  service  rendered  by  the  prophets  to  the 
higher  interests  of  humanity.  Their  characteristic 
passion  for  righteousness  was  a  virtue  of  ^Uch  tran- 
scendent worth  that  of  itself  it  might  cover  a  multi- 
tude of  infirmities.  Their  idea  of  God  as  an  ethical 
being  is  worthy  of  all  acceptation,  and  intrinsically 
fit  to  survive  all  other  conceptions.  They  might  be 
mistaken  as  to  the  precise  mode  and  measure  in 
which  divine  righteousness  reveals  itself  in  the  world, 
but  their  imperishable  merit  is  to  have  seen  clearly 
that  the  only  Divinity  worthy  of  homage  is  one  who 
careth  for  the  right,  and  who  can  be  acceptably 
served  only  by  doing  justly  and  loving  mercy.  Their 
broad  assertion  of  the  reign  of  retributive  law  in 
this  present  world,  if  too  unqualified,  was  and  will 
continue  to  be  a  much-needed  moral  tonic  for  the 
conscience  of  men.  Let  us  not  complain  of  them 
because  they  had  so  little  to  say  about  a  future  life 
and  its  compensations.  It  is  possible  to  make  a 
bad  use  of  these ;  to  be  too  meekly  resigned  to 
iniquity  on  earth  because  all  things  will  be  put 
right  in  the  great  Hereafter.  The  prophets  were 
not  guilty  of  this  sin.  They  said :  If  divine  justice 
be  a  reality,  let  it  show  itself  here  and  now.  It 
will  be  a  bad  day  for  the  social  and  moral  well- 
being  of  communities  when  their  emphatic  utter- 
ances to  this  effect  come  to  be  treated  as  antiquated 


206  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

delusions.  They  were  not,  as  has  been  sometimes 
asserted,  'socialists/  but  they  strenuously  insisted 
on  social  well-being  as  a  thing  to  be  earnestly  pro- 
moted by  all,  according  to  their  power ;  and  they 
were  never  weary  of  advocating  the  claims  of  the 
poor.  'Do  justly  and  love  mercy 'was  the  burden 
of  their  prophesying.  Lastly,  we  owe  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  the  great  seers  of  the  Hebrew  race  for 
so  strongly  affirming  a  connection  between  conduct 
and  lot  in  the  history  of  nations.  Their  declarations 
are,  if  you  will,  over-peremptory,  onesided,  extreme. 
That  is  the  way  of  prophets.  All  things  considered, 
this  prophetic  onesidedness  is  a  very  excusable 
fault.  The  truth  they  proclaimed  is  habitually  over- 
looked by  many,  and  neglected  truths  need  vehe- 
ment, monotonously  reiterated,  assertion  to  win  for 
them  an  open  ear.  And  what  they  thus  asserted, 
though  much  disregarded,  is  true.  It  is  a  fact  that 
righteousness  makes  for  the  well-being  of  a  people, 
and  that  prevalent  unrighteousness  is  not  only  dis- 
graceful but  ruinous.  Let  him  that  hath  an  ear 
heart 


LECTURE    VII 

THE  BOOK  OF  JOB 

No  account  of  the  history  of  human  thought  on  the 
subject  of  Providence,  however  slight  and  sketchy, 
could  omit  the  remarkable  contribution  made  by 
that  book  in  the  Hebrew  canonical  literature  which 
bears  the  name  of  Job.  By  its  intrinsic  merits  it 
takes  a  foremost  place,  not  only  in  that  literature, 
but  in  the  whole  religious  literature  of  the  world. 
Mr.  Froude  does  not  exaggerate  when  he  speaks 
of  it  as  a  book  *  unequalled  of  its  kind,  which  will 
one  day,  perhaps,  when  it  is  allowed  to  stand  on 
its  own  merits,  be  seen  towering  up  alone,  far 
away  above  all  the  poetry  of  the  world/1  As  a 
discussion  of  the  question  as  to  the  reality  of  a 
Providential  order  it  is  unique.  There  is  nothing 
like  it  either  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  or  outside  of 
it ;  nothing  so  thorough,  so  searching,  or  so  bold. 
Surprise  has  been  expressed  that  a  work  so 
audacious  and  free-spoken  should  have  obtained 
a  place  in  the  Hebrew  Canon,  under  the  vigilant 

1  Short  Stiuties  on  Great  Subjects,  vol.  i.  p.  187. 


2o8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OP  THE  WORLD 

supervision  of  the  scribes.1  But  there  is  much 
more  in  the  Canon  with  which  collectors  and 
editors  belonging  to  that  class  would  find  it  hard 
to  sympathise,  e.g.  many  of  the  prophetic  utterances. 
The  prophets  paved  the  way  for  Job.  They  in- 
augurated the  type  of  doubting  thought,  and  they 
cast  the  shield  of  their  prestige  over  an  author  who 
went  much  further  in  the  path  of  doubt  than  any 
of  them  had  ventured.  If  a  prophet  might  be 
allowed  to  ask:  *  Wherefore  lookest  thou  upon 
them  that  deal  treacherously,  and  holdest  thy 
peace  when  the  wicked  swalloweth  up  the  man 
that  is  more  righteous  than  he?'2  why  should  not 
another  earnest  student  of  God's  mysterious  ways  be 
permitted  to  make  such  an  apparently  irreverent 
question  the  theme  of  a  daring,  elaborate  discussion  ? 
If  it  entered  into  the  plan  of  the  compilers  of  the 
Canon  to  let  the  perplexities  of  thoughtful  men 
on  the  subject  of  divine  Providence  find  adequate 
expression,  no  book  could  have  a  better  claim  to 
recognition  than  the  Book  of  Job.  This  is  its  very 
raison  d'etre:  to  give  free  rein  to  sincere,  serious 
doubt ;  to  probe  the  problem  of  the  moral  order 
to  the  bottom  by  discussing  the  test  question,  Do 
good  men  suffer,  and  why  ?  Its  method  lends  itself 
to  ample  exhaustive  treatment.  The  author  does 
not  speak  in  his  own  name ;  he  makes  others  speak, 
introducing  as  many  interlocutors  as  are  necessary 
1  Froude,  Short  Studies,  vol.  i.  p.  187.  *  Habakkuk  i.  13. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  20? 

to  represent  all  shades  of  opinion.  He  is  not 
himself  a  dogmatist  or  theorist;  he  is  much  more 
concerned  to  >h."»w  how  the  matter  strikes  other 
men  than  to  offer  himself  as  one  in  possession  of 
a  new,  satisfactory,  solution.  He  deahr  with  his 
theme  after  the  manner  of  a  sage  rather  than  after 
the  manner  of  a  prophet.  The  prophet  spoke 
oracularly,  delivering  his  belief  in  divine  Justice 
as  an  inspired  message,  prefaced  with  a  '  Thus  saith 
the  Lord.'  The  author  of  Job  has  no  message  from 
God  to  offer.  His  mental  burden  rather  is  that 
God  does  not  speak,  that  He  maintains  an  ominous, 
oppressive  silence  as  to  the  meaning  of  His  doings, 
leaving  men  to  grope  their  way  in  the  dark  as  best 
they  can.  What  he  gives  us  is  an  animated  picture 
of  these  gropings,  with  an  occasional  illuminating 
word  thrown  in  here  and  there  to  mitigate  the  gloom 
of  night  for  such  as  understand. 

As  to  the  date  of  this  priceless  product  of  Hebrew 
wisdom  critics  are  far  from  agreement.  Opinion, 
ancient  and  modern,  ranges  from  the  time  of 
Moses — the  author  according  to  the  tradition  of  the 
synagogue — to  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  and  even 
later  still.  The  topic  cannot  be  discussed  here. 
Let  it  suffice  to  say  that  such  a  book,  in  the 
natural  course  of  things,  could  only  be  produced 
when  the  question  of  Providence  in  the  indhidual 
life  had  become  acute.  That  did  not  happen  in 
Israel,  so  far  as  we  know,  till  the  time  of  Jersmiah. 

O 


210  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  our  book  was  written 
after  that  famous  prophet  had  delivered  his  oracles 
and  expressed  his  doubts  about  the  righteousness  of 
divine  government.  The  reputation  of  the  prophet 
for  borrowing  has  indeed  led  some  to  assign  to 
the  author  of  Job  the  position  of  predecessor,  both 
Jeremiah  and  Job  cursing  their  birth-day  in  very 
much  the  same  style.  The  similarity,  however, 
may  be  accidental,  or,  if  borrowing  took  place,  it 
may  have  been  on  the  other  side.  Our  best 
guide  to  the  time  of  composition  is  a  suitable 
situation.  Men  write  such  books  in  times  of  dire 
distress,  when  the  iron  of  a  pitiless  destiny  has 
entered  into  their  soul.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  most  congenial  general  date  is  that  of  the 
captivity  in  Babylon.  The  unknown  writer  of  the 
book  of  Job  may  have  been  a  contemporary  and 
companion  in  tribulation  of  the  unknown  prophet 
to  whom  we  owe  the  second  half  of  the  book  of 
Isaiah. 

Coming  to  the  book  itself,  we  find  it  consists  of 
a  prologue  and  epilogue,  both  in  plain  prose,  and 
lying  between  a  long  series  of  very  impassioned 
speeches  in  poetic  dialect  arranged  in  the  form  of 
a  dialogue,  in  which  the  speakers  are  the  hero  of 
the  book,  three  of  his  friends,  another  person 
called  Elihu,  and  finally  Jehovah.  The  prologue 
quaintly  tells  the  story  of  a  man  in  the  land  of 
Uz,  who  was  at  once  very  good  and,  for  a  while, 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  211 

very  prosperous,  till,  by  a  series  of  calamities,  he 
was  denuded  of  his  prosperity  and  reduced  to  a 
pitiful  state  of  misery.  It  further  lets  us  into  the 
secret  of  this  change  of  state.  In  a  gathering  of 
the  'Sons  of  God'  an  accuser  called  Satan/ appears 
before  the  Lord,  and  insinuates  a  doubt  whether 
Job  would  cultivate  goodness  if  his  righteousness 
and  piety  were  to  be  dissociated  from  the  well- 
being  with  which  they  had  hitherto  been  accom- 
panied.1 There  was  only  one  way  in  which  this 
sinister  insinuation  could  be  effectually  disposed 
of,  viz.,  by  experiment.  Job  must  be  deprived  of 
everything  that  entered  into  his  cup  of  happiness — 
health,  wealth,  family — to  see  how  he  would  behave. 
This  happens  accordingly,  as  we  are  shown  in  a 
succession  of  tragic  scenes.2  The  epilogue  briefly 
relates  how  the  sufferer,  after  enduring  patiently  his 
trial,  was  rewarded  by  a  prosperity  exceeding  that 
of  which  he  had  been  temporarily  bereft.8 

The  question  has  been  raised,  in  what  relation  the 
author  of  Job  stood  to  these  opening  and  closing 
sections  of  the  book.  A  not  improbable  suggestion 
is  that  he  took  these  portions  from  a  people's  book 
previously  in  circulation  relating  the  eventful  story 
of  the  man  of  Uz,  and  inserted  between  them  the 
long  dialogue  which  forms  his  personal  contribution 
to  the  discussion  of  the  problem  as  to  the  connection 
between  character  and  lot.  Whether  the  whole  of 

1  Job  i.  6-12.  2  Ibid.  i.  13-!!.  10.  *  Ibid.  xlii.  10-17. 


212  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  intercalated  material,  forming  the  main  body 
of  the  work,  came  from  his  pen  is  a  point  much 
disputed.  Many  critics  think  that  the  speeches  of 
Elihu  and  Jehovah  mar  the  unity  of  the  book, 
and  must  have  proceeded  from  another  hand. 
This  question  does  not  greatly  concern  us.  What 
we  are  chiefly  interested  to  note  is  that  the 
speeches  of  Elihu,  whoever  wrote  them,  contain  a 
distinct  view  of  the  question  in  debate.  They  are 
on  that  account  deserving  of  some  notice  in  an 
attempt  to  estimate  the  amount  of  light  thrown 
by  the  book  of  Job  as  it  stands  on  the  mysteries 
of  providence.  Besides,  it  has  been  maintained 
that,  apart  altogether  from  Elihu's  utterances,  the 
theory  broached  therein  can  be  shown  to  be  that 
which  the  author  of  the  book  meant  to  teach.1  When 
we  come  to  consider  the  didactic  value  of  the  book 
this  opinion  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with. 

The  part  of  the  work  about  whose  genuineness 
there  is,  on  the  whole,  least  room  for  doubt  is  that 
in  which  Job  and  his  three  condoling  friends  hold 
debate.  It  is  by  far  the  most  important  as  well  as 
the  most  certainly  authentic,  and  it  will  repay  us  to 
make  ourselves  somewhat  closely  acquainted  with  its 
contents  by  a  detailed  analysis. 

Job  begins  the  war  of  words  by  a  soliloquy  in 
which  he  curses  not  God,  but  his  day.  Leprosy 
has  been  long  enough  upon  him  to  affect  his 

1    }'!<1c  Karl  Budde,  Das  Buck  Hid\  KinYitnng.  pp.  xxi  -x\\ix. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  213 

temper,  and  he  indulges  his  melancholy  humour 
in  fantastic  imprecations  on  the  day  on  which  he 
was  born,  in  passionate  longing  for  the  advent  of 
death  the  great  leveller,  and  for  the  sweet  rest  of 
the  tomb  ;  and  in  expressions  of  surpryse  at  the 
continued  existence  of  men  so  miserable  as  himself.1 

This  unrestrained  outburst  opens  the  mouth  of 
friends  who  for  seven  days  have  sat  in  respectful 
silence  in  presence  of  suffering.  They  have  their 
preconceived  ideas  about  the  cause  of  such  suffer- 
ings, but  they  might  have  kept  these  to  themselves 
had  they  not  been  provoked  to  speak.  Now  that 
Job  had  spoken  so  plainly,  they  may  speak  with 
equal  plainness.  They  use  their  privilege  to  the 
full.  Eliphaz  the  Ternanite,  Bildad  the  Shuhite, 
and  Zophar  the  Naamathite,  deliver  their  sentiments, 
if  not  with  remarkable  wisdom,  at  least  with  extra- 
ordinary fluency,  copiousness,  and  emphasis. 

The  long  discussion  between  Job  and  his  com- 
panions divides  itself  into  three  cycles.  The  plan 
of  the  debate  is  that  each  of  the  three  friends  speaks 
in  turn  ;  Eliphaz  first,  Bildad  second,  Zophar  third, 
Job  replying  to  each  in  succession.  The  first  en- 
counter is  described  in  Chapters  iv.-xiv.,  the  second 
occupies  Chapters  xv.-xxi.,  and  the  third  Chapters 
xxii.-xxxi.  In  the  third  cycle  Zophar  does  not  speak.2 

1  Job  ill 

2  Some  critics  think  that  chap,  xxvii.  8-10,  12-23,  containing  senti- 
ments unsuitable  in  the  mouth  of  Job,  are  really  a  part  of  Zophar 's 
third  speech  which  has  strayed  from  its  place. 


214  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

In  the  first  cycle  the  combatants  take  up  their 
ground  and  reveal  their  idiosyncrasies.  Eliphaz, 
the  oldest,  wisest,  and  most  considerate  of  the  three 
visitors,  states  at  the  outset  the  position  held  in 
common  by  them.  With  perfect  confidence  that  his 
theory  of  Providence  is  correct  beyond  question,  he 
presents  it  for  Job's  consideration  in  these  terms: 
*  Remember,  I  pray  thee,  who  ever  perished  being 
innocent?  or  where  were  the  righteous  cut  off?  Even 
as  I  have  seen,  they  that  plough  iniquity,  and  sow 
wickedness,  reap  the  same.'1  This  amounts  to  an 
assertion  that  there  is  a  perfect  moral  government 
of  God  in  the  world  rendering  to  every  man  accord- 
ing to  his  deserts  here  and  now.  The  problem  of 
the  book,  Do  good  men  suffer,  and  why?  is  thus 
solved  by  being  voted  out  of  existence.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  really  good  man  suffering  such 
calamities  as  have  overtaken  Job.  The  man  who 
so  suffers,  if  not  absolutely  bad,  must  at  least  have 
been  guilty  of  some  very  heinous  special  sins  whereof 
his  sufferings  are  the  just  penalty.  Job  is  accord- 
ingly invited  by  each  of  the  three  friends  in  succes- 
sion to  regard  his  afflictions  as  a  call  to  repentance 
in  hope  of  recovering  thereby  lost  prosperity.  *  Be- 
hold/ exclaims  Eliphaz,  '  happy  is  the  man  whom 
God  correcteth :  therefore  despise  not  thou  the 
chastening  of  the  Almighty.' 2  '  If,'  chimes  in  Bildad, 
'thou  wouldest  seek  unto  God  betimes,  and  make 
1  Job  iv.  7,  8.  9  Ibid.  v.  17. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  215 

thy  supplication  unto  the  Almighty,  surely  now  He 
would  watch  over  thee  and  make  thy  righteous 
habitation  secure,  and  thy  beginning  should  be  small 
(in  comparison)  and  thy  latter  end  should  greatly 
increase.'  / 

While  all  holding  the  same  general  view,  each 
of  the  three  advocates  of  this  na'fvely  simple  theory 
supports  the  common  thesis  in  his  own  way.  Eli- 
phaz  bases  his  belief  on  observation,  and  also  and 
very  specially  on  a  revelation  made  to  him  in  a 
vision,  which  he  introduces  into  his  first  speech  with 
an  imposing  solemnity,  whose  effect  is  marred  by 
theatricality  in  the  style  and  exaggeration  in  the 
sentiment.  Startled  by  the  night-vision,  and  with 
hair  standing  on  end,  he  hears  this  oracle  uttered 
by  the  voice  of  an  invisible  speaker:  'Behold,  God 
putteth  no  trust  in  His  servants,  and  His  angels  He 
chargeth  with  folly.  How  much  more  them  that 
dwell  in  houses  of  clay,  whose  foundation  is  in  the 
dust?'2  There  may  have  been  a  time  when  such 
courtly,  obsequious  sentiments  could  pass  for  sound 
theology,  but  no  one  whose  idea  of  God  is  Christian 
can  accept  them  as  bearing  the  stamp  of  a  veritable 
divine  revelation. 

Bildad's  stronghold  is  not  special  revelation,  but 

the  voice  of  antiquity.      Setting  little  value  on  the 

opinion  of  such  short-lived   mortals  as  himself,  he 

falls  back  for  proof  of  his  theory  on  the  traditions 

1  Job  viii.  5,  6.  a  Ibid.  iv.  12-19. 


216  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  the  fathers.  *  Inquire  of  the  former  age,  and 
apply  thyself  to  that  which  their  fathers  have  searched 
out  (for  v/e  are  but  of  yesterday  and  know  nothing, 
because  our  days  upon  earth  are  a  shadow).' l  And 
what  is  the  testimony  of  bygone  generations?  That 
any  prosperity  which  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  wicked 
is  unstable;  his  good  fortune  is  like  the  frail  reed, 
or  the  delicate  web  of  the  spider.2 

Zophar  has  neither  divine  vision  nor  old  saw  to 
enforce  his  argument.  He  finds  in  his  own  private 
judgment  sufficient  evidence  of  the  truth  of  his 
views.  He  is  a  feeble,  barren  dogmatist,  who  makes 
up  for  want  of  thought  by  bold  assertion,  and  covers 
the  poverty  of  his  imagination  by  violent  language. 
He  speaks  to  Job  more  harshly  than  either  of  his 
brethren.  Eliphaz  softens  the  charge  of  guilt  by 
merging  the  individual  case  in  the  general  sinful- 
ness  of  humanity :  '  Man  (for  his  sins)  is  born  unto 
trouble  as  the  sparks  fly  upward/3  Bildad  merely 
insinuates  that  Job  may  be  insincere  in  his  piety, 
by  describing  the  end  of  a  hypocrite.4  But  Zophar 
calls  Job  to  his  face  a  babbler,  a  liar,  and  a  fool, 
and  tells  him  that  his  sufferings  are  less  than  his 
iniquity  deserves.  The  only  thing  with  any  preten- 
sions to  originality  in  his  speech  is  a  brief,  impotently 
inadequate  eulogium  on  the  unsearchableness  of 
divine  wisdom.  '  Canst  thou/  he  insolently  asks  Job, 

1  Job  viii.  8.  f  Ibid.  viii.  11-13. 

*  Ibid.  v.  7.  4  Ibid.  viii.  13. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  217 

'by  searching  find  out  God?'1  as  if  it  were  Job, 
and  not  rather  he  and  his  friends  who  virtually 
claimed  to  have  fathomed  the  depths  and  scaled 
the  heights  of  the  Almighty's  mind  and  way! 

Each  of  Job's  replies  to  these  opening/speeches 
of  his  opponents  is  divisible  into  two  parts.  First, 
he  answers  his  human  adversary;  then,  forgetting 
men,  he  lifts  up  his  soul  to  God  and  speaks  to  Him 
concerning  his  afflictions.  To  get  a  clear  idea  of 
his  state  of  mind,  it  will  be  convenient  to  consider 
the  replies  to  men  and  the  addresses  to  God  sepa- 
rately, not  forgetting,  however,  that  these  addresses 
to  the  Deity  are  supposed  to  be  heard  by  the 
friends,  and  to  have  an  argumentative  bearing  on 
their  position. 

As  against  his  human  opponents,  Job  makes  a 
good  defence.  He  brings  a  preliminary  charge  of 
heartlessness  against  them  all.  Had  they  but  sym- 
pathetically realised  the  extent  of  his  affliction, 
he  would  have  been  spared  the  sermon  which  the 
Temanite  had  preached  at  him.  *  Oh  that  my  grief 
were  thoroughly  weighed,  and  that  my  sufferings 
were  laid  with  it  in  the  balances  !'2  'Doth  the  wild 
ass  bray  when  he  hath  grass  ?  or  loweth  the  ox  over 
his  fodder?'8  That  is  to  say:  'Do  you  imagine  I 
have  cursed  my  day  without  reason?'  To  justify- 
that  passionate  outburst  of  impatience,  he  repeats 
the  wish  that  his  miserable  life  might  forthwith 
1  Job  xi.  7.  »  Ibid.  vi.  2.  8  Ibid.  vi.  5. 


218  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

end.1  Then  turning  on  his  friends,  he  reproaches 
them  with  lack  of  sympathy,  comparing  them  to 
streams  in  the  south  which,  rolling  in  full,  turbid 
torrent  in  winter,  dry  up  and  disappear  in  the 
scorching  heat  of  summer,  just  when  they  are  most 
needed,  to  the  grievous  disappointment  of  travellers 
passing  in  caravans  through  the  desert.2 

While  keenly  hurt  by  his  brethren's  unkindness, 
Job  is  utterly  unimpressed  by  their  arguments.  In 
replying  to  Eliphaz,  he  contents  himself  with  flatly 
denying  the  position  he  had  laid  down.  'My  sin,' 
he  says  in  effect, '  is  not  the  cause  of  my  sufferings, 
whatever  the  cause  may  be.'  He  knows  this  from 
his  own  moral  consciousness,  whose  testimony  he 
trusts  implicitly  as  he  trusts  his  palate  for  the  taste 
of  food.  'Now  therefore/  he  says  to  Eliphaz  with 
irresistible  directness,  '  be  so  good  as  to  look  upon 
me,  look  straight  at  me.  I  shall  surely  not  lie  to 
your  face.  Return,  I  pray  you ;  don't  be  unfair. 
Return,  I  say  again ;  my  righteousness  is  at  stake. 
Is  there  iniquity  in  my  tongue?  cannot  my  palate 
discern  what  is  wrong?'8  Do  you  think,  that  is  to 
say,  I  don't  know  the  difference  between  good  and 
evil? 

In  his  answer  to  Bildad  the  Traditionalist  Job 
repeats  his  denial  of  the  current  theory  in  the  form 
of  an  ironical  admission.  Bildad  had  concluded  his 
speech  with  the  words :  '  Behold,  God  will  not  cast 

1  Job  vi.  9.  »  Ibid.  vi.  15-20.  *  Ibid.  vi.  28-30. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  219 

away  a  perfect  man,  neither  will  he  help  the  evil 
doer.'1  To  this  Job  replies:  'No  doubt!  I  know 
it  is  so  of  a  truth.'2  That  this  is  ironically  meant 
appears  from  the  fact  that  the  speaker  proceeds 
immediately  to  state  that  no  one  can  be /ust  before 
God,  not  because  man  is  sinful  and  God  holy,  but 
because  man  is  weak  and  God  mighty.  Frail  mortals 
have  no  chance  with  One  who  is  wise  in  heart  and 
great  in  strength,  who  can  uproot  mountains,  shake 
the  solid  earth,  obscure  the  sun,  seal  up  the  stars, 
tread  on  the  waves,  and  rejoice  in  the  storm.3  With 
such  a  powerful  Being  he,  Job,  would  rather  not 
contend.  He  would  not  care  to  appear  with  Him 
in  court,  either  as  pursuer  or  as  defender.  Even 
if  he  were  innocent  he  would  not  reply  to  His 
charges,  but  would  make  supplication  to  his  assail- 
ant. Though  he  might  deem  himself  wronged,  he 
would  not  call  the  Almighty  One's  doings  in  ques- 
tion, lest  he  should  bring  on  himself  more  bitter 
plagues.4 

Such  sentiments  imply  that  a  regard  to  equity 
is  not  apparent  in  God's  dealings  with  men.  Not 
right  but  might  seems  to  rule  the  world.  Job 
accordingly  openly,  fiercely  declares  this  to  be  his 
opinion.  '  I  am  guiltless ;  I  value  not  my  life,  I 
despise  existence.  It  is  all  one,  therefore  I  will 
out  with  it ;  guiltless  and  guilty  He  destroys  alike. 

1  Job  viii.  20.  2  Ibid.  ix.  2. 

»  Ibid.  ix.  4-8.  «  Ibid.  ix.  14-20. 


220  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

When  the  scourge  slays  suddenly,  He  mocks  at  the 
distress  of  the  righteous.  Earth  is  given  by  Him 
into  the  hand  of  the  wicked.  He  covereth  the  faces 
of  the  judges  thereof  (so  that  their  judgments  are 
unjust  or  erroneous).  If  not  He,  who  then  is  it? 
The  fact  at  least  is  undeniable.'1 

In  replying  to  Zophar,  Job  becomes  contemptuous. 
'  No  doubt/  he  exclaims,  levelling  the  remark  at  all 
the  three  friends,  but  aiming  especially  at  Zophar ; 
'no  doubt  but  ye  are  the  people,  and  wisdom  shall 
die  with  you.  But  I  have  understanding  as  well  as 
you  ;  I  am  not  inferior  to  you  :  yea,  who  knoweth 
not  such  things  as  these?'2 — such  platitudes,  i.e.  as 
Zophar  had  just  uttered  concerning  Divine  Might 
and  Wisdom.  He  takes  it  as  an  insult  to  have  such 
things  said  to  him  as  if  relevant  to  his  case.  They 
are  not  against  him,  they  rather  make  a  point  in 
his  favour ;  for  the  mysteriousness  of  God's  ways 
was  just  the  truth  which  his  experience  exemplified. 
Far  from  denying  that  truth,  therefore,  he  enlarges 
on  it,  eloquently  descanting  on  the  wisdom  and 
power  of  God  as  manifested  in  the  works  of  creation 
and  providence,  and  showing  Zophar  how  far  he 
can  excel  him  even  in  his  own  line.  This  eulogium 
is  one  of  the  choice  passages  in  the  book.8 

Facts  proving  that  God  is  wise  and  mighty  abound 
in  the  world.  But  what  have  they  to  do  with  the 
question  at  issue?  Does  God's  sovereign  power 

1  Job  ix.  22-24.  *  MM*  *"•  2,  3.  *  Ibid.  xii.  13-25. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  221 

prove  that  he,  Job,  is  now  suffering  on  account  of 
special  sin?  If  Zophar  had  no  better  argument  than 
that,  he  would  have  done  well  to  remain  silent.  So 
to  argue  was  to  play  the  part  of  a  sycophant  towards 
God,  maintaining  that  all  He  does  mu^  be  right 
because  He  is  almighty.  This  odious  role  Job  with- 
out hesitation  ascribes  to  his  friends.  He  calls  them 
special  pleaders  for  God  ;  charges  them  with  speaking 
wrong  in  God's  behalf,  talking  deceitfully  for  Him, 
accepting  His  person,  taking  His  side  because  it  is 
safe,  saying  in  effect,  *  The  Almighty  is  of  course 
right,  and  you  are  not  to  be  listened  to.  He  has 
grievously  afflicted  you,  and  that  settles  the  matter ; 
you  are  a  wicked  man.' 1  He  warns  them  that  God 
will  not  thank  them  for  this  service.  For  God  is 
righteous,  though  His  righteousness  does  not  mani- 
fest itself  as  they  imagine,  and  He  will  be  angry  at 
them  for  telling  lies  in  His  interest,  and  throwing  a 
poor  mortal  beneath  the  wheel  of  His  omnipotence, 
exclaiming,  '  It  is  right  that  he  should  be  crushed ; 
it  is  the  chariot  of  the  Almighty  that  rolls  over  him  !' 
In  his  addresses  to  God  the  attitude  of  Job  is 
more  questionable.  He  utters  in  these  some  senti- 
ments of  an  unbecoming  character  which,  if  delibe- 
rately entertained,  would  be  blasphemous.  In  the 
Authorised  Version  Job's  sayings  to  and  about  God 
do  not  appear  so  bad  as  they  really  are.  The  trans- 
lators, having  apparently  been  unable  to  conceive  the 

]  Job  \v\.  6-8. 


222  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

possibility  of  any  one  pretending  to  piety  addressing 
to  the  Deity  such  audacious  language  as  Job  actu- 
ally uses,  have  toned  down  or  whitewashed  some  of 
his  utterances,  so  as  to  give  to  them  an  aspect  of 
devoutness  which  does  not  belong  to  them.  This 
is  to  be  regretted,  as  one  great  religious  use  of  the 
book  is  thereby  partially  frustrated,  that,  viz.,  of 
letting  a  suffering  saint  say  the  worst  things  about 
God  which  can  enter  into  the  minds  of  good  men 
in  their  hours  of  temptation  and  darkness.  There 
need  be  no  hesitation,  therefore,  in  making  the 
afflicted  patriarch  appear  as  profane  and  irreverent 
as  he  is  in  the  Hebrew  original. 

In  his  first  address,1  after  a  sad  lament  over  the 
hard  lot  of  man  on  earth,  followed  up  by  a  piteous 
appeal  to  the  Divine  Taskmaster  to  remember  the 
brevity  of  human  life,  fleeting  as  the  wind,  dissolving 
into  nothing  like  a  cloud,  the  sufferer  resolves  to 
indulge  in  unrestrained  complaining.  So  he  asks 
God, '  Am  I  a  sea,  or  a  sea  monster,  that  Thou  settest 
a  watch  upon  me  ?' 2  (as  if  afraid  of  me).  He  ascribes 
to  God  the  rdle  of  a  gaoler,  and  tells  Him  that  it 
is  not  worth  His  while  to  trouble  Himself  about  so 
insignificant  a  creature  as  man.  It  is  making  too 
much  of  a  man  to  visit  him  every  morning  and  try 
him  every  moment.  Why  not  look  away  and  leave 
the  poor  sufferer  alone  to  swallow  his  spittle? 
Granting  said  sufferer  was  a  sinner,  was  it  worth 
1  Chapter  viL  •  Job  vii.  12. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  223 

God's  while  to  play  the  gaoler  over  him?  Better 
forgive  his  sin  and  so  relieve  Himself  of  the  burden 
of  keeping  guard  over  His  criminal,  all  the  more  that 
ere  long  the  criminal  will  have  gone  the  way  of  all 
the  earth,  and  his  jealous  Watcher  will  nof  have  the 
opportunity  of  pardoning  him  even  if  He  should 
wish.1 

In  his  second  address2  Job  waxes  still  more  auda- 
cious. He  declares  that  God  has  made  up  His  mind 
to  hold  him,  the  sufferer,  guilty,  irrespective  of  the 
merits  of  his  case.  '  I  know  that  Thou  wilt  not 
hold  me  innocent.  I  have  to  be  guilty  (right  or 
wrong)  ;  why  then  labour  I  in  vain  ?  If  I  should  wash 
myself  with  snow-water,  and  make  my  hands  ever 
so  clean,  yet  shalt  Thou  plunge  me  in  the  ditch, 
and  mine  own  clothes  shall  abhor  me.'8  He  calls 
God  an  oppressor :  '  Is  it  good  unto  Thee  that  Thou 
shouldest  oppress,  to  reject  the  work  of  Thine  hands 
and  shine  upon  the  counsel  of  the  wicked  ? ' 4  Again  : 
*  If  I  sin,  then  Thou  markest  me,  and  Thou  wilt  not 
acquit  me  from  mine  iniquity.  If  I  be  wicked,  woe 
unto  me ;  and  if  I  be  righteous  yet  will  I  not  lift 
up  mine  head — Thou  wouldest  hunt  me  as  a  fierce 
lion,  redouble  thine  indignation  against  me,  marshal 
host  on  host  against  me.'  5 

In  the  third  address6  the  tone  becomes  more 
subdued.  Still  we  hear  defiant  notes,  as  when, 

1  Job  vii.  17-21.  %  Ibid.,  chapter  x.  *  Ibid.  ix.  28. 

4  Ibid.  x.  3.  §  Ibid.  x.  14-17.  e  Ibid.  xiii. 


224  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

according  to  the  true  translation,  the  sufferer  says : 
1  He  may  slay  me,  I  expect  nothing  else,  yet  I  will 
maintain  mine  own  ways  before  Him.'1  But  Job's 
charge  against  God  now  is,  not  that  He  afflicts 
without  cause,  but  that,  assuming  the  penal  nature 
of  his  sufferings,  they  are  out  of  proportion  to  his 
sins.  He  asks :  '  How  many  are  mine  iniquities 
that  thou  writest  bitter  things  against  me,  and 
makest  me  inherit  the  sins  of  my  youth?'2  He  is 
conscious  of  faults  committed  in  bygone  years,  but 
he  wonders  that  God  should  remember  them  so 
long,  if  it  be  indeed  for  them  he  is  suffering. 

Finally,  Job  abandons  the  tone  of  an  accuser 
altogether,  and  ends  his  third  address  and  the  first 
cycle  of  debate  with  an  elegiac  strain  of  lamentation 
over  the  sinful,  sorrowful,  fleeting  character  of 
human  life,  whose  subdued  pathos  is  fitted  to  touch 
the  heart  both  of  God  and  of  man.  Who  can  read 
unmoved  the  chapter  which  begins :  '  Man  born  of 
woman  is  of  few  days  and  full  of  trouble '  ?  3 

Can  we  say  that  in  all  these  speeches  to  and 
about  God,  Job  sinned  not  with  his  lips  ?  .  We 
cannot.  Must  we  then  admit  that  Satan  has  gained 
the  wager,  and  that  Job  has  been  brought  so  far 
as  to  curse  God?  By  no  means.  For  the  point 
at  issue  was  not  what  Job,  under  the  maddening 
influence  of  disease,  would  say  about  God,  but 
whether  he  would  continue  to  value  virtue  and  a 

1  Job  xiii.  15.         «  Ibid,  xiii.  23,  26.         •  Ibid.,  chapter  xiv. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  225 

good  conscience  even  after  they  had  ceased  to  be 
profitable.  Now  that  he  did  so  continue,  his  very 
irreverences  of  speech  conclusively  demonstrate. 
Righteousness  is  of  such  unspeakable  value  to  him 
that  in  defence  of  it  he  will  put  his  b/ck  to  the 
wall  against  the  whole  universe,  even  against  God 
Himself.  He  will  rather  die,  he  will  rather  pro- 
nounce the  government  of  the  world  an  iniquity, 
than  belie  his  good  conscience,  and  say  that  he  is 
wicked,  because  he  is  unhappy.  He  is  not  self- 
righteous.  He  is  aware  that  he  has  done  wrong, 
but  he  is  also  sure  that  he  is  not  what  is  meant  by  a 
wicked  man.  He  loves  right,  and  he  will  not,  to 
please  God,  or  to  make  all  His  ways  appear  righteous, 
or  to  gratify  men  by  homologating  their  theories, 
pretend  that  he  does  not.  And  in  all  this  he  un- 
consciously glorifies  the  great  Being  whom  he  seems 
to  blaspheme,  by  showing  himself  to  be  the  man 
God  had  represented  him  to  be  in  the  assembly  of 
the  sons  of  God,  one,  viz.,  to  whom  righteousness 
was  the  dearest  thing  in  all  the  world. 

But  this  is  not  all.  There  is  an  aspect  of  Job's 
bearing  towards  God  which  has  not  yet  been  looked 
at.  In  the  very  addresses  in  which  we  have  found 
some  very  irreverent  sentiments,  Job  expresses  him- 
self in  a  way  which  shows  that  in  the  depths  of 
his  soul  he  still  trusts  the  God  of  whom  he  com- 
plains. He  is  divided  against  himself,  and,  corre- 
sponding to  this  war  within  his  soul,  there  is  a 

P 


226  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

dualism  in  his  representation  of  God.  God  is  set 
against  God,  the  God  of  appearance  against  the  God 
of  reality ',  the  God  of  the  present  against  the  God  of 
the  future.  This  comes  out  even  in  the  speeches 
of  the  first  cycle,  and  it  becomes  more  apparent  as 
the  debate  goes  on.  Thus  in  his  reply  to  Zophar 
he  tells  the  friends  that  God  will  punish  them  for 
playing  the  part  of  special  pleaders,  even  though  it 
was  in  the  divine  interest.  How  could  he  more 
strongly  express  his  belief  that,  in  spite  of  appear- 
ances, God  was  just  and  would  yet  show  Himself 
to  be  just  in  his  cause?  In  the  same  speech  he 
declares  :  '  Even  He  (God)  shall  be  my  salvation  ;  for 
an  hypocrite  shall  not  come  before  Him.' * 

Having  analysed  with  some  minuteness  the  first 
cycle  in  the  great  debate,  the  other  two  need  not 
occupy  us  long.  Little  new  matter  appears  in  the 
speeches  of  the  friends.  They  repeat  themselves  as 
dogmatists  are  wont  to  do.  There  are  the  same 
exaggerated  sentiments  about  God  putting  no  trust 
in  His  servants,  and  about  the  heavens  not  being 
clean  in  His  sight ;  the  same  appeals  to  antiquity 
in  support  of  the  theory  advocated ;  the  same 
laboured  descriptions  of  the  downfall  of  the  wicked. 
The  three  friends  have  but  one  or  two  ideas 
in  their  head,  on  which  they  tiresomely  ring  the 
changes.  They  have  theoretic  blinders  on,  that 
prevent  them  from  seeing  all  round.  Job,  on  the 

1  Job  xiii.  1 6. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  227 

other  hand,  having  no  blinders  on,  sees  in  all 
directions,  never  repeats  himself,  as  the  debate 
advances  becomes  ever  more  fertile  in  ideas;  not 
an  uncommon  experience  in  the  case  of  all  who 
keep  their  minds  open,  and  do  not  imagine  they 
have  got  to  the  bottom  of  everything. 

Another  contrast  reveals  itself  in  these  later  dis- 
cussions. The  three  visibly  lose  their  temper, 
while  the  afflicted  man,  though  fighting  against 
odds,  as  if  conscious  that  he  is  having  the  best  of 
it,  grows  more  and  more  calm  and  dignified  in  his 
tone.  A  slight  ruffling  of  temper  is  manifest  in  the 
speeches  of  the  friends  in  the  second  cycle,  but  it 
is  avowed  only  by  Zophar,  who  is  the  type  of  those 
hot-headed  zealots  who  fight  fiercely  for  the  cause 
of  truth,  ostensibly,  but  whose  zeal  is  largely  the 
product  of  wounded  vanity.  He  gratifies  his  irri- 
tated feelings  by  drawing  a  frightful  picture  of  the 
awful  end  of  the  ungodly  man,  the  hypocrite,  by 
whom  he  means  Job,  which  is  effectively  replied  to 
by  another  picture  in  more  life-like  colours  of  wicked 
men  prospering  in  all  their  ways,  living  to  great  age, 
spending  their  days  in  wealth,  and  going  down  to 
the  grave  without  lingering  disease,  in  a  moment ; 
men  whose  whole  life  said  to  God :  '  Depart  from 
us,  for  we  desire  not  the  knowledge  of  Thy  ways.' x 

In  the  third  cycle  even  Eliphaz  loses  command  of 
himself,  and  in  his  anger  at  Job's  obstinacy  goes 

1  Job  xxi.  7-15. 


228  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  length  of  charging  him  with  horrible  crimes 
without  a  particle  of  evidence,  simply  because  the 
exigencies  of  theory  required  him.  'Thou  hast 
taken  a  pledge  from  thy  brother  for  nought,  and 
stripped  the  naked  of  their  clothing.  Thou  hast 
not  given  water  to  the  weary  to  drink,  and  thou 
hast  withholden  bread  from  the  hungry.'1  When 
he  began  the  debate,  Eliphaz  did  not  think  so  ill 
of  his  friend  as  to  imagine  him  capable  of  these 
inhumanities.  What  will  men  not  think  and  say  of 
each  other  when  they  have  got  fairly  involved  in 
a  religious  controversy ! 

In  Job's  later  speeches  two  things  are  specially 
noticeable  :  the  sentiments  he  here  utters  concerning 
God,  and  his  grand,  triumphant,  concluding  oration. 

There  is  discoverable  progress  in  Job's  theology. 
His  sky  is  still  stormy,  but  through  the  cloud-rack 
bright  stars  glimmer.  The  dealing^  of  Providence 
with  himself  and  with  the  world  in  general  are  still 
very  incomprehensible  to  him.  He  cannot  under- 
stand why  God  runs  upon  him  like  a  giant,  while 
there  is  no  injustice  in  his  hands  and  his  prayer  is 
pure,2  and  he  asks  why  the  Almighty  does  not 
appoint  legal  terms  for  trying  causes,  so  that  good 
men  may  be  encouraged  with  the  prospect  of  judg- 
ment on  sinners,  but  allows  the  ungodly  to  do  as 
they  please  with  impunity — to  remove  landmarks, 
rob  the  poor,  commit  murder  and  adultery  ;  in  short, 

1  Job  xxii.  6,  7.  *  Ibid.  xvi.  14-17. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  229 

to  break  every  commandment  in  the  Decalogue.1 
But  while  the  God  of  appearances  continues 
mysterious  to  him,  his  deep-seated  faith  in  the  God 
of  reality  grows  in  strength  and  clearness.  He 
believes  that  somewhere  in  the  universe  there  must 
be  One  who  can  understand  and  sympathise  with 
him.  He  has  been  utterly  disappointed  in  his 
friends.  Despairing  of  getting  justice  from  men, 
he  is  driven,  as  a  last  resource,  to  the  very  Being 
who  has  smitten  him,  and  to  the  upright  light  arises 
out  of  the  very  darkness.  '  O  earth,'  he  exclaims  with 
unspeakable  pathos, ' cover  not  thou  my  blood,  and  let 
my  cry  have  no  place.  Also  now,  behold,  my  witness 
is  in  heaven,  and  my  record  is  on  high.  My  friends 
scorn  me,  but  mine  eye  poureth  out  tears  unto 
God.'z  Then  he  gives  utterance  to  a  very  bold  para- 
doxical thought,  viz.,  that  God  will  plead  for  the 
afflicted  one  even  against  Himself,  as  one  man 
might  intercede  for  another.  The  real  idea  escapes 
in  the  Authorised  Version,  which  runs  :  '  O  that  one 
might  plead  for  a  man  with  God,  as  a  man  pleadeth 
for  his  neighbour.' 8  What  Job  really  says  is  :  '  Mine 
eye  weeps  to  God  that  he  would  decide  for  the 
man  (himself)  against  God.'  The  thought  recurs  a 
little  further  on :  *  Lay  down  now  (a  price),  be  surety 
for  me  with  Thyself,  for  who  else  will  do  me  this 
service?'  Not  the  friends  certainly,  'for,'  he  adds, 
'Thou  hast  hid  their  heart  from  understanding.'4 

1  Job  xxiv.  I.      a  Ibid.  xvi.  18-20.       3  Ibid.  xvi.  21.      4  Ibid.  xvii.  3. 


23o  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

The  next  bright  star  shining  through  the  gloom 
of  night  is  the  famous  passage  :  *  I  know  that  my 
goel  liveth.'1  According  to  the  traditional  inter- 
pretation Job  expresses  in  explicit  terms  his  faith 
in  One  who,  many  centuries  after,  came  to  redeem 
men  from  sin,  and  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
Recent  expositors  of  all  schools  doubt  whether  such 
a  Christian  meaning  can  fairly  be  extracted  from 
the  words.  The  general  import  is  clear  enough. 
The  goel,  or  redeemer,  is  God,  and  Job  expects  Him 
to  appear  for  his  vindication  at  some  future  time. 
The  point  on  which  opinion  chiefly  differs  is 
whether  the  expected  vindication  is  to  be  in  this 
present  life,  or  in  a  life  beyond.  That  faith  in  a  future 
existence  should  here  make  its  appearance  is  not 
incredible.  It  would  be  another  instance  of  a  new 
hope  springing  out  of  despair.  But  we  should  be  jus- 
tified in  imputing  this  new  hope  to  Job  only  in  case 
his  words  admitted  of  no  other  sense.  This  does 
not  seem  to  be  the  fact.  According  to  recent  inter- 
preters, the  text  can  be  translated  with  due  regard 
to  Hebrew  idiom  so  as  to  eliminate  all  reference  to 
a  future  life.  The  resulting  sense  is  this :  '  I  know 
that  my  vindicator  liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand 
as  afterman  (i.e.  as  one  having  the  last  word,  pro- 
nouncing final  verdict)  upon  the  earth :  and  from 
behind  my  skin,  out  of  (i.e.  still  in)  the  flesh,  shall 
I  see  God.  Whom  I  shall  see  favourable  to  me, 

1  Ibid.  xix.  25-27. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  231 

inine  eyes  shall  see,  and  not  as  a  stranger— my  reins 
in  my  body  sigh  for  it.' 1  Job  waits  for  God  as  they 
that  wait  for  the  dawn.  The  winter  night  may  be 
long,  cold,  dreary,  but  the  dawn,  he  is/  sure,  will 
come ;  come  while  he  lives  in  his  mortal  body ; 
come,  bringing  the  divine  word:  'Yes!  Job  My 
faithful  servant  is  righteous.' 

Now  we  pass  to  the  grand  final  charge  with  which 
our  hard-pressed  Hero,  fighting  single-handed,  wins 
his  Waterloo.  Job's  last  speech  is  very  long,  filling 
six  chapters.2  First  he  replies  to  the  last  word  of 
his  friends  spoken  by  Bildad,  consisting  in  a  feeble 
repetition  in  a  few  sentences  of  the  now  trite 
commonplace :  '  God  is  mighty ;  who  can  contend 
with  Him  ?  God  is  holy,  even  the  stars  are  not  pure 
in  His  sight:  how  much  less  man  the  worm  !'3  Job 
ironically  compliments  Bildad  on  the  profundity 
and  comprehensiveness  of  his  speech,  then  launches 
forth  into  the  praise  of  divine  power  and  wisdom  in 
a  style  far  above  Bildad's  capacity,  then  announces 
to  him  and  his  two  companions  his  fixed  determina- 
ation  not  to  abandon  his  position :  '  God  forbid  that 
I  should  justify  you :  till  I  die  I  will  not  remove 
mine  integrity  from  me.'4  Then  follows  a  magni- 
ficent eulogium  on  Wisdom,  as  more  difficult  to  be 
found,  and  more  worthy  to  be  sought  after,  than  the 

1  Vide  Budde's  Commentary.     The  text  of  the  passage  is  regarded 
by  scholars  as  rery  corrupt.     Vide  Cheyne,y<?£  and  Solomon,  p.  33. 

2  Chapters  xxri.  -xxxi.  *  Chapter  xxv.  *  Chapter  xxvii.  5. 


232  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

precious  metals  men  dig  for  in  the  earth,  ending 
with  the  solemn  announcement  that  this  incompar- 
ably precious  thing  consists  in  fearing  God  and 
departing  from  evil  j1  an  announcement  conclusively 
showing  that  in  spite  of  his  sufferings  and  his  utter 
perplexity  as  to  their  cause,  Job  has  no  thought  of 
bidding  good-bye  to  piety,  is  indeed  incapable  of 
such  a  thought. 

Then  finally  comes  a  sublime  monologue  in  three 
parts :  the  first  describing  the  lost  felicity  ;2  the 
second  vividly  picturing  present  misery  :3  sitting  on 
a  dunghill,  wasting  into  dust,  the  sport  of  gipsy 
vagabonds  whose  fathers  he  would  have  disdained  to 
set  with  the  dogs  of  his  flock ;  the  third  solemnly 
protesting  innocence  of  any  crime  that  could  possibly 
account  for  such  unparalleled  woe,  and  depicting 
in  minute  detail  the  character  of  the  bygone  life  in 
happier  years.4 

This  self-depiction  is  of  importance  as  a  com- 
mentary on  the  brief  characterisation  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  book :  a  man  perfect  and  upright,  that 
feared  God  and  eschewed  evil.  Job,  as  described  by 
himself,  justifies  this  encomium.  His  righteousness 
is  not  pharisaical,  but  like  that  commended  by  Jesus 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  He  is  chaste,  not  only 
in  outward  act  but  even  in  look  and  thought.  He 
is  just  even  to  his  slaves,  remembering  that  in  God's 

1  Chapter  xxviii.  a  Chapter  xxix. 

*  Chapter  xxx.  4  Chapter  xxxL 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  233 

sight  master  and  servant  are  on  a  level.  He  is 
merciful  as  well  as  just.  He  eats  not  his  morsel 
alone,  but  gives  the  fatherless  a  share.  The  loins  of 
the  unclad  poor  bless  the  man  who  covered  them 
with  cloth  made  from  the  fleece  of  his  sheep.  He  is 
no  purse-proud,  grasping  mammon-worshipper,  no 
idolator  of  gold  as  the  summum  bonum  ;  still  less  an 
idolater  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word.  He  has 
never  cast  a  superstitious  look  at  the  sun  by  day,  or 
at  the  full  moon  walking  in  brightness  through  the 
sky  by  night.  He  is  not  vindictive ;  he  has  never 
rejoiced  at  the  fall  of  an  enemy,  or  wished  a  curse 
upon  his  sons.  He  has  attended  to  the  duties  of 
hospitality,  never  allowing  the  stranger  to  lodge  in 
the  street,  ever  opening  his  door  to  the  traveller. 
He  keeps  open  table,  so  that  it  seems  a  proverb : 
'  Who  has  not  been  satisfied  with  his  flesh  ? '  Finally, 
he  has  not  been  a  secret  sinner,  keeping  up  a  fair 
appearance  before  men,  from  fear  of  the  multitude  and 
the  contempt  of  families,  and  indulging  private  vices. 
At  home  and  in  the  market  he  is  the  same  man. 

What,  now,  is  the  didactic  significance  of  this 
solemn  debate  on  Providence?  Renan  remarks 
that  the  genius  of  the  poem  lies  in  the  indecision 
of  the  author  on  a  subject  where  indecision  is  the 
truth.1  The  observation  is  to  a  certain  extent 
just.  The  writer  is  as  far  as  possible  from  being 

1  Histoire  du  Peuple  d* Israel,  vol.  iii.  p.  82. 


234  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

a  dogmatist,  or  from  imagining  that  he  has  at  last 
found  the  key  that  will  open  the  mystery.  Still,  he 
is  something  more  than  a  merely  neutral  listener 
to  a  discussion  in  which  other  men  air  their  opinions. 
He  has  his  bias.  His  sympathies,  it  is  safe  to  say, 
are  decidedly  with  Job.  The  transcendent  power  of 
Job's  speeches,  as  compared  with  those  of  the  other 
interlocutors,  reveals  not  only  the  high-water  mark 
of  his  poetic  talent,  but  the  secret  source  of  his 
inspiration  in  passionate  personal  conviction.  He 
indorses  emphatically  Job's  position,  and  his  main 
interest  in  writing  his  book  probably  was  to  establish 
it  once  for  all.  What,  then,  was  that  position  ?  It 
was  negative  in  form,  but  very  important  in  import. 
Job  dared  to  maintain  that  the  theory  so  confidently 
contended  for  by  the  friends  was  unfounded.  Rely- 
ing on  his  moral  sense,  he  is  perfectly  sure  that  a 
good  man  may  suffer  as  he  is  suffering,  and  that 
any  theory  which  denies  this  is  false.  Why  such 
a  man  suffers  he  does  not  profess  to  know,  but  that 
he  may  suffer  he  regards  as  certain.  As  the  proof 
of  his  thesis  is  drawn  from  his  own  experience  he 
naturally  states  it,  not  with  didactic  calmness,  but 
with  much  heat  and  passion.  Hence  the  imputation 
of  injustice  to  God.  It  is  a  way  of  putting  the 
theorists  in  a  corner,  saying  in  effect :  You  teach 
that  only  the  wicked  suffer.  I  suffer,  and  I  am  not 
wicked ;  therefore  your  view  is  mistaken.  The 
accusation  brought  against  God  of  being  an  un- 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  235 

righteous  judge  has  mainly  argumentative  value. 
The  same  remark  applies  to  the  suggestion  that 
God  uses  His  power  to  crush  the  weak  without 
regard  to  the  merits  of  their  cause.  What  Job 
really  asserts  is  the  brutality  of  men  whfe  put  him 
down  with  a  cut-and-dried  theory.  Their  behaviour 
appears  to  him  to  amount  to  the  worship  of  power, 
and  to  making  might  right.  His  own  idea  of  God 
rises  far  above  that  which  would  degrade  Him  into 
an  almighty  arbitrary  despot.  It  finds  its  clearest 
expression  in  the  great  word  :  '  I  know  that  my 
goel  liveth/  which  amounts  to  a  declaration  of 
belief  that  God  would  eventually  indorse  the  self- 
estimate  of  the  sufferer,  and  say  that  he  was  not 
wicked.  That  is  all  he  expects  from  God  :  not 
restoration  of  prosperity,  simply  a  verdict  in  his 
favour.  The  man  who  expects  this  believes  that  he 
already  enjoys  the  divine  approval,  his  calamities 
notwithstanding.  And  with  this  approval  and  that 
of  his  own  conscience  he  is  content.  It  is  not  in- 
dispensable to  him  to  recover  good  fortune,  how- 
ever much  he  may  appreciate  it.  He  could,  if  need 
be,  live  and  die  a  leper.1  Continuance  of  misery 
will  not  shake  his  faith,  or  imperil  his  moral  in- 
tegrity. He  can  and  does  serve  God  for  nought. 

1  Budde  maintains  that  an  unhappy  ending  of  his  heroic  life  is  for 
the  author  of  Job  impossible,  and  he  characterises  the  opposite  view 
as  a  Stoicism  of  which  there  is  no  trace  in  the  Old  Testament  in 
general,  or  in  the  book  of  Job  in  particular.  Vide  his  Das  Buck  Hiobt 
Einleitung,  p.  xxxvi. 


236  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

For  the  fear  of  God,  wisdom,  character,  uprightness, 
is  more  in  his  esteem  than  any  amount  of  material 
good.  It  is  the  summum  bonum.  It  is  of  priceless, 
incomparable  worth ;  '  it  cannot  be  valued  with  the 
gold  of  Ophir,  with  the  priceless  onyx,  or  the  sap- 
phire.'1 

This  is  a  great  advance  on  the  time-honoured 
theory  of  Eliphaz  and  his  brethren.  It  brings  us  to 
the  borders  of  the  New  Testament.  It  may  indeed 
seem  as  if  the  epilogue  of  the  book  of  Job  stood  in 
the  way  of  our  ascribing  to  its  author  so  enlightened 
a  view.  It  is  there  stated  that  'the  Lord  blessed 
the  latter  end  of  Job  more  than  his  beginning.' 
If  the  writer  thought  that  necessary,  was  his 
theoretical  position  not  essentially  that  of  Job's 
friends?  If  he  regarded  the  return  of  prosperity 
simply  as  an  accidental  fact  vouched  for  by  tra- 
dition, ought  he  not  to  have  passed  it  over  in 
silence,  that  there  might  be  no  doubt  as  to  his 
attitude  towards  the  theory  of  the  Temanite?  Or  did 
he  give  to  the  tragic  story  of  the  man  of  Uz  this 
pleasant  ending  simply  as  a  good-natured  conces- 
sion to  popular  ideas,  trusting  that  wise  readers 
would  take  it  for  what  it  was  worth?  Or,  finally, 
is  the  epilogue  an  editorial  appendix  for  which 
the  writer  is  not  responsible,  his  last  words  being: 
'The  Lord  also  accepted  Job'?2  This  is  the  critical 
problem  of  the  epilogue,  with  possible  solutions. 

1  Job  xxviii.  16.  *  Ibid.  xlii.  9. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  $37 

Good  men,  then,  may  suffer  long,  manifoldly,  tragi- 
cally— that  is  a  settled  matter  for  the  author.  But 
why  do  they  suffer  ?  What  is  the  rationale  of  their 
affliction  ?  That  question  stands  over.  Three  kinds 
of  answer  are  possible.  First  that  there  is  no 
rationale,  that  the  sufferings  of  men  through  such 
calamities  as  befell  Job  have  no  special  significance, 
that  they  belong  to  the  chances  of  life  which  overtake 
indifferently  good  and  evil  men  alike.  This  view  is 
hinted  at  by  Job  when  he  says :  '  He  destroyeth  the 
perfect  and  the  wicked.'1  Next,  it  may  be  held  that 
the  sufferings  of  good  men  have  a  meaning,  and  that 
the  meaning  is  to  be  found  in  their  effect  upon  them- 
selves by  way  of  moral  discipline  or  purification. 
This  is  the  view  advocated  by  Elihu.2  This  inter- 
locutor differs  from  his  three  friends  in  his  judgment 
of  the  sufferer.  He  regards  Job  as  a  sincere,  pious, 
but  faulty  man,  and  his  sufferings  he  views  as  a 
chastisement  sent  by  a  gracious  God  for  his  spiritual 
improvement.  Finally,  it  may  be  held  that  the 
sufferings  of  good  men  have  a  meaning,  and  that 
their  highest  meaning  is  to  be  found  in  their  bearing 
on  others.  What  if,  e.g.  the  rationale  of  such  suffer- 
ing should  be  to  satisfy  a  sceptical  world  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  disinterested  goodness  ?  This  is 
the  view  suggested  in  the  prologue. 

Such  thoughts  as  these  do  occur  in  Job,  whatever 

1  Job  ix.  22. 

*  Vide  his  speeches  in  chapters  xxxii. -xxxvii. 


238  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  relation  of  the  author  to  them  may  be,  and  they 
are  to  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth.  But  the 
question  may  legitimately  be  asked,  To  what  extent 
does  the  writer  make  himself  responsible  for  these 
views,  what  value  does  he  set  upon  them  ?  Perhaps 
the  answer  which  comes  nearest  the  truth  is,  that 
he  regarded  them  all  as  worth  stating,  but  accepted 
none  of  them  as  a  complete  or  ultimate  solution. 
He  offers  them  simply  as  guesses  at  truth  on  a 
dark  subject.  The  position  of  a  preferred  theory  is 
claimed  by  some  for  the  view  propounded  by  Elihu.1 
If,  however,  the  honour  of  being  spokesman  for  the 
author  belongs  to  him,  then  it  must  be  said  that  the 
author's  grasp  of  the  problem  at  issue  is  not  so  deep 
or  so  comprehensive  as  the  power  and  boldness  dis- 
played in  his  work  would  lead  us  to  expect.  The 
theme  is:  the  sufferings  of  the  righteous,  their 
reality  and  their  rationale,  and  the  supposed  thesis : 
the  righteous  may  suffer,  even  grievously ;  but  they 
suffer  because,  though  righteous,  they  sin,  and  their 
suffering  is  the  divinely  appointed  means  of  their 
purification.  This  view  is  true  so  far  as  it  goes,  but 
it  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter  or  cover  the 


1  This  is  the  view  of  Budde.  Kautzsch,  on  the  other  hand,  thinks 
that  the  Elihu  speeches  are  utterly  opposed  to  the  aim  of  all  the  rest 
of  the  book.  He  finds  the  key  to  solution  of  the  riddle  in  the  Jehovah 
speeches,  holding  it  to  be  so  clear  and  simple  there  that  no  one  who 
does  not  shut  his  eyes  can  miss  it,  a  very  confidently  expressed  opinion 
but  very  slightly  founded.  Vide  Outline  of  the  History  of  the  Litera- 
ture of  the  Old  Testament  (Williams  and  Norgale). 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  239 

whole  ground  of  the  inquiry,  To  what  extent  and 
why  do  the  righteous  suffer  ?  It  says :  A  man  may 
suffer  though  righteous,  because  while  righteous  on 
the  whole  he  is  still  sinful.  But  is  there  iiot  such 
a  thing  as  suffering  for  righteousness;  the  more 
righteous  the  more  suffering,  the  perfectly  right- 
eous one  presumably  the  greatest  sufferer  of  all  ? 
Think  of  the  tribulations  of  a  Jeremiah,  for  example. 
If,  as  is  probable,  these  were  known  to  our  author, 
it  is  not  credible  that  he  could  offer  as  the  final  word 
on  the  subject  at  issue  :  discipline,  purification.  It 
is  altogether  too  partial  and  shallow  a  solution. 

The  theory  of  the  prologue  goes  much  deeper.  It- 
contemplates  the  case  of  a  man  suffering  for  right- 
eousness, not  merely  though  righteous.  The  more 
righteous  the  man,  the  more  urgent  the  demand  for 
a  testing  experience.  A  sceptical  Satan  (or  world) 
says:  'Yes,  here  are  phenomenal  piety  and  good- 
ness ;  but  see  how  prosperous  is  the  state  of  this 
saint !  Deprive  him  of  his  enviable  fortune,  and  will 
not  even  he  break  down  ? '  It  is  the  signal  character 
of  the  virtue  that  makes  the  experiment  worth 
trying.  And  it  takes  place,  not  for  the  sufferer's 
moral  improvement,  which  is  not  much  needed,  but 
to  silence  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  goodness. 

The  author  of  Job,  it  may  be  assumed,  recognised 
in  the  representation  of  the  prologue  at  least  one 
point  of  view  from  which  the  sufferings,  .of  the 
righteous  might  be  contemplated.  If  he  did,  he 


*4°  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

could  not  have  intended  to  offer  Elihu's  contribution 
as  an  exhaustive  solution,  or  indeed  as  indicating 
anything  higher  than  a  secondary,  subordinate  use 
of  affliction.  The  pregnant  hint  of  the  prologue 
directs  attention  to  a  service  of  much  greater  im- 
portance to  the  moral  order,  for  which  there  is  ever 
a  need  in  this  world.  There  are  always  plenty  of 
people  ready  to  play  Satan's  part,  and  to  ask  the 
sneering  question  :  'Doth  Job  fear  God  for  nought?' 
The  ruling  spirit  of  the  world  is  selfishness,  and  the 
majority  are  sceptical  as  to  the  possibility  of  any 
man  aiming  at  a  higher  end  than  personal  advantage. 
How  can  this  plausible  lie  be  met  ?  For  the  good  of 
mankind,  for  the  sake  of  all  the  higher  interests  of 
society,  it  is  indispensable  that  it  be  conclusively 
refuted.  How  can  this  be  done?  Only  by  the 
noble-minded,  who  believe  in  something  loftier  than 
mere  happiness,  enduring  suffering  for  their  con- 
victions. Persecutions  must  come.  When  they  do 
come  the  sceptical,  base-minded,  self-seeking  world 
is  struck  dumb.  The  accuser  of  the  brethren  is 
silenced  and  confounded  when  he  sees  how  the 
white-robed  army  of  martyrs  scorn  fear  and  face 
torture  and  death.  'They  overcame  him  by  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb,  and  by  the  word  of  their 
testimony;  and  they  loved  not  their  lives  unto  the 
death^ 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  sufferings  which  in  the 

1  Revelation  xii.  IX. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  241 

prologue  are  reported  to  have  overtaken  Job  are  not 
of  the  nature  of  persecutions.  They  are  of  an  out- 
ward, accidental  character,  not  such  as  arise  directly 
out  of  the  doing  of  righteousness,  as  in  thfc  case  of 
Jeremiah,  who  was  persecuted  for  the  faithful  fulfil- 
ment of  his  prophetic  vocation.  The  afflictions  of 
the  prophet  did  not  consist  in  the  accidental  loss  of 
property,  family,  and  health,  but  in  misunderstand- 
ing, derision,  illwill,  the  immediate  inevitable  effect 
of  his  moral  fidelity.  It  is  only  in  such  a  case  as 
his  that  the  idea  of  suffering  for  righteousness 
reaches  full  realisation.  It  is  not  to  be  hastily 
supposed  that  the  conception  of  this  type  of  suffer- 
ing had  not  risen  above  our  author's  mental  horizon, 
even  if  we  regard  the  prologue,  not  as  a  datum 
lying  ready  to  his  hand,  but  as  a  composition  of 
his  own.  The  afflictions  of  his  hero  are  skilfully 
adapted  to  the  simple  conditions  of  life  in  ancient 
times,  and  to  popular  capacities  in  all  times.  An 
experience  like  that  of  Jeremiah  could  hardly  occur 
in  a  patriarchal  age,  and  if  it  did,  its  lessons  could 
not  easily  be  made  generally  intelligible.  But  there 
is  more  than  this  to  be  said.  The  sufferings  of  Job 
correspond  to  the  theory  which  it  is  the  object  of 
the  book  bearing  his  name  to  criticise.  The  theory 
assumed  that  piety  and  prosperity  must  go  together. 
The  criticism  consists  in  showing  that  piety  and 
prosperity  must  sometimes  be  dissociated,  if  it  were 
only  to  let  piety  have  an  opportunity  for  evincing  its 

Q 


242  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

sincerity.1  An  experience  like  that  of  Job  could 
alone  serve  that  purpose.  Jeremiah's  experience 
could  be  turned  to  higher  account.  The  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah  reads  its  peculiar  lesson. 

Is  there  any  trace  of  that  lesson  in  the  book  of 
Job  ?  There  is,  and,  strange  to  say,  it  is  found  in 
the  last  speech  of  Eliphaz,  where,  speaking  of  the 
good  Job  might  do  by  his  repentance,  he  says : 
1  He  (Job)  shall  deliver  the  not-innocent '  (that  is,  the 
guilty) ;  '  he  (the  guilty)  shall  be  delivered  by  the 
pureness  of  thine  hands.' 2  Eliphaz  seems  to  ascribe  a 
vicarious  merit  to  the  righteousness  of  a  saint  purified 
from  sin  by  the  fires  of  affliction.  It  is  remarkable 
that  at  the  close  of  the  book  this  stray  thought  of  the 
Temanite  finds  actual  fulfilment.  The  function  and 
influence  of  an  intercessor  are  assigned  to  the  much- 
tried  man  of  God,  and  Eliphaz  himself  gets  the 
benefit  of  Job's  mediation.  Here  again  is  an 
anticipation  of  Christian  thought.  The  book  of 
Job,  for  as  dark  as  it  seems,  and  in  many  respects 
is,  yet  touches  the  New  Testament  here  and  there  in 
sudden  flashes  of  insight,  and  surprisingly  adven- 
turous turns  of  thought. 

1  The  history  of  the  patriarchs  in  Genesis  presents  an  actual  example 
of  piety  tested  by  loss.  Abraham  must  give  up  Isaac  to  show  that  he 
really  fears  God  (Gen.  xxii.  12). 

1  Job  xxii.  30.    Vide  the  Revised  Version. 


LECTURE    VIII 

CHRIST'S  TEACHING  CONCERNING  DIVINE 
PROVIDENCE 

IN  passing  from  the  pages  of  the  prophets  and  of 
Job  to  the  Gospels,  we  are  conscious  of  a  great 
change  in  the  'psychological  climate.1  The  change 
is  all  the  more  remarkable  that  it  takes  place  in 
the  same  spiritual  territory.  In  the  words  of  Jesus 
there  is  the  same  intense  faith  in  the  moral  order, 
the  same  passion  for  righteousness,  the  same  faith 
in  the  blessedness  of  the  righteous  that  we  have  be- 
come familiar  with  as  the  outstanding  characteristics 
of  the  Hebrew  seers.  There  is  also  the  same 
conviction  that  the  experience  of  the  righteous 
man  is  by  no  means  one  of  uniform  happiness, 
which  finds  pungent  expression  in  some  burning 
utterances  of  the  later  prophets,  and  reaches  white 
heat  in  the  book  of  Job.  But  the  prophetic  ideals 
of  righteousness  and  its  rewards  have  undergone 
transformation.  The  querulousness  of  Jeremiah 
and  the  bitterness  of  the  man  of  Uz  have  utterly 
disappeared.  The  storm  is  changed  into  a  calm,  and 

243 


244  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  accents  of  complaint  have  been  replaced  by  a 
spirit  of  imperturbable  serenity. 

Our  statement  of  Christ's  doctrine  of  Providence 
may  conveniently  begin  with  an  expansion  of  this 
brief  comparison  between  His  thoughts  and  the 
thoughts  of  those  who  in  a  very  real  sense  were 
preparers  of  His  way. 

The  prophetic  ideal  was  a  righteous  nation  enjoying 
prosperity ;  an  ideal  far  from  being  realised  in  Israel 
in  any  present  time  known  to  any  particular  prophet ; 
but  which,  when  it  did  arrive,  would  be  a  veritable 
Kingdom  of  God :  God's  will  done,  and  the  doing 
of  it  rewarded  with  general  well-being  by  the  Divine 
Governor,  the  happy  people  having  for  its  creed : 
'  The  Lord  is  our  Judge,  the  Lord  is  our  Lawgiver, 
the  Lord  is  our  King;  He  will  save  us.'1  When 
Jesus  came,  He  too  proclaimed  a  Divine  Kingdom. 
The  burden  of  His  Galilean  gospel  was:  'The 
Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.'2  But  the  Kingdom 
of  Hebrew  prophecy  and  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Evangel,  while  the  same  in  name,  were  different  in 
essential  characteristics.  The  Messianic  Kingdom 
of  the  prophets,  especially  of  the  earlier  prophets, 
was  national  and  political ;  the  Kingdom  whose 
advent  was  heralded  by  Jesus  is  spiritual  and 
universal.  The  immediate  subject  of  God's  reign 
in  this  new  Kingdom  is  the  individual  man,  not 
a  whole  people,  and  the  seat  of  dominion  is  the 

1  Isaiah  xxxiii.  22.  3  Mark  i.  15. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     245 

human  heart.  All  may  become  citizens  who  possess 
the  receptivity  of  faith,  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews, 
the  worst  not  less  than  the  best.  The  heart  is  the 
seat  of  the  blessedness  of  this  kingdom,  as  well  as 
of  its  rule.  The  reward  of  righteousness  is  within, 
not,  as  of  old,  without.  And  because  it  is  within 
it  is  certain,  subject  to  none  of  the  chances  of  all 
outward  felicity.  'Blessed  are  they  which  do 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness :  for  they  shall 
be  filled,'1  not  merely  maybe.  And  none  but  they 
who  hunger  shall  be  filled.  It  cannot  by  any  chance 
happen  that  the  satisfactions  proper  to  the  righteous 
shall  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  unrighteous.  '  Wicked- 
ness is  never  rewarded,  and  righteousness  is  never 
punished.  It  is  no  reward  to  lose  one's  life ;  it  is 
no  punishment  to  save  one's  life.'2 

This  programme  of  a  moral  order,  spiritual  and 
inward  in  its  rewards  not  less  than  in  its  require- 
ments, leaves  room  for  any  amount  of  troublous 
experience  in  the  outward  lot.  The  citizen  of  this 
kingdom  may  suffer,  not  only  in  spite  but  on 
account  of  citizenship.  Blessed  ones  may  be,  on 
a  secular  estimate,  miserable.  The  Beatitudes  of 
the  Teaching  on  the  Hill  are  a  series  of  paradoxes, 
which  seem  to  say :  Blessed  are  the  unblessed. 
Speaking  generally,  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  concerning 
outward  good  and  evil  is  startling.  It  may  be 

1  Matthew  v.  6. 

8  Watson,  Christianity  and  Idealism^  p.  86. 


246  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

summed  up,  in  so  far  as  it  is  peculiar,  in  three 
propositions:  (i)  that  external  good  and  evil  are 
to  a  large  extent  common  to  men  irrespective  of 
character ;  (2)  that  there  are  sufferings  which 
inevitably  overtake  all  who  devote  themselves  to 
the  highest  interests  of  human  life  ;  (3)  that  those 
who  so  suffer  are  not  to  be  pitied,  either  by  them- 
selves or  by  others  ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  have 
good  cause,  as  also  capacity,  for  joy. 

The  classic  text  for  the  first  of  these  positions  is 
that  in  which  it  is  taught  that  the  Divine  Father 
*  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the 
good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the 
unjust.'1  A  companion  text,  setting  forth  the  dark 
aspect  of  the  same  general  truth,  may  be  found  in 
the  words :  '  Suppose  ye  that  these  Galilaeans  were 
sinners  above  all  the  Galilaeans,  because  they  suffered 
such  things  ?  I  tell  you,  Nay  :  but,  except  ye  repent, 
ye  shall  all  likewise  perish.  Or  those  eighteen,  upon 
whom  the  tower  in  Siloam  fell,  and  slew  them,  think 
ye  that  they  were  sinners  above  all  men  that  dwelt 
in  Jerusalem?  I  tell  you,  Nay:  but,  except  ye 
repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish.'2  These  state- 
ments sound  commonplace  now,  but  they  were  by 
no  means  commonplaces,  as  coming  from  the  mouth 
of  a  Jewish  teacher  nineteen  centuries  ago  ;  they  were 
rather  startling  novelties.  To  perceive  the  truth  of 
this  assertion  in  reference  to  the  saying  about  the 
1  Matthew  v.  45.  *  Luke  xiii.  2-5. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     247 

sun  and  the  rain  you  have  only  to  compare  it  with 
the  text  in  Deuteronomy  wherein  the  first  rain  and 
the  latter  rain  necessary  for  a  gooji  harvest  are 
guaranteed  to  those  who  keep  God's  command- 
ments.1 The  other  saying  concerning  disasters 
which  befell  certain  men  of  Galilee  and  Jerusalem 
is  seen  to  be  equally  novel  in  tone  when  we 
remember  how  customary  it  was  with  prophets  and 
sages  of  Israel,  in  ancient  times,  to  regard  signal 
calamities  as  the  punishment  of  special  sins.  In 
the  case  of  the  men  of  Galilee  and  Jerusalem  the 
calamities  were  signal  enough,  but,  in  opposition 
to  popular  opinion  inherited  from  past  ages,  it  is 
expressly  denied  that  there  was  necessarily  any 
corresponding  speciality  in  sin.  That  is  to  say,  it 
is  denied  that  the  disasters  in  question  were  of  the 
nature  of  judgments  on  sin.  It  is  implied,  though 
not  said,  that  they  might  have  overtaken  men 
remarkable  for  goodness  rather  than  for  wicked- 
ness, that  among  the  men  on  whom  the  tower  in 
Siloam  fell  might  have  been  some  of  the  best  people 
in  Jerusalem. 

The  two  sayings  just  commented  on  do  not  signify 
that  sunshine  and  shower,  and  disastrous  casualties 
visiting  good  and  evil  alike,  are  entirely  destitute  of 
moral  significance.  On  the  lips  of  Jesus,  they  only 
meant  that  in  such  matters  Divine  Providence  does 
not  proceed  according  to  the  law  of  retributive 

1  Deuteronomy  xi.  14. 


248  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

justice.  Though  the  justice  of  God  is  not  apparent 
in  them,  some  other  attribute  may  be  revealed.  In 
the  case  of  the  saying  concerning  sun  and  rain,  we 
are  not  left  to  guess  what  the  attribute  may  be.  In 
the  universal  and  indiscriminate  bestowal  of  these 
vitally  important  boons,  Jesus  read  divine  magna- 
nimity. He  saw  in  the  fact  proof  that  God  is  some- 
thing more  and  higher  than  a  Moral  Governor,  that 
to  a  very  large  extent  He  deals  not  with  men  after 
their  sins,  that  *  the  Lord  is  good  to  all,  and  His 
tender  mercies  are  over  all  His  works.'  In  the 
accidents  named  in  the  other  saying  Jesus  saw  not 
a  judgment  on  the  dead,  but  a  warning  to  the  living. 
He  said  to  His  hearers  in  effect :  *  You  have  listened 
to  these  reports  with  superstitious  awe,  and  have 
wondered  what  heinous  crimes  the  miserable  victims 
have  been  guilty  of.  Think  not  of  them,  but  of 
yourselves.  They  may  or  may  not  have  been 
sinners  exceedingly,  but  there  is  no  doubt  how  it 
stands  with  you,  the  men  of  this  generation.  You 
are  in  a  bad  way ;  a  judgment  day  is  coming  on 
Israel  for  her  sins,  and  if  you  will  moralise  on  the 
recent  events  in  Galilee  and  Jerusalem,  I  advise  you 
to  see  in  them  emblems  of  approaching  horrors 
on  a  larger  scale,  whose  connection  with  sin  is 
unquestionable/ 

The  second  thesis  in  Christ's  doctrine  of  suffering 
is  contained  in  the  saying:  '  If  any  man  will  come 
after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross, 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     249 

and  follow  Me.'1  The  cross  stands  for  the  most 
ignominious  and  cruel  form  of  penalty  for  crime,  as 
inflicted  by  the  Romans,  and  the  gefferal  lesson  is 
that  the  criminal's  lot  may  overtake  the  devoted 
servants  of  the  loftiest  moral  ideal ;  that  notable 
suffering,  exciting  horror  or  pity  in  the  beholder, 
may  befall  those  who  of  all  men  least  deserve  it. 
Not  only  may  but  shall ;  it  happens  not  by  accident 
but  by  law ;  not  necessarily,  of  course,  literal 
crucifixion,  or  the  maximum  of  possible  suffering 
in  every  case,  but  acute,  soul -wringing  anguish, 
from  which  sensitive  nature  shrinks,  in  some  form : 
loss  of  home,  brethren,  lands,  love,  reputation,  life. 
This  is  the  hard  lot  appointed  to  those  who  are 
the  sons  of  God  indeed,  to  those  who  let  their 
light  shine  when  the  temptation  is  to  hide  it,  to 
the  moral  pioneers  of  humanity,  the  path-finders, 
and  their  early  disciples. 

The  third  article  in  the  doctrine  of  suffering  as 
taught  by  Jesus,  viz.,  that  the  sufferers  for  righteous- 
ness are  not  proper  subjects  of  pity,  is  set  forth  in 
one  of  the  Beatitudes  in  these  glowing  terms : 
'  Blessed  are  they  which  are  persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness' sake :  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Blessed  are  ye,  when  men  shall  revile  you,  and 
persecute  you,  and  shall  say  all  manner  of  evil 
against  you  falsely,  for  My  sake.  Rejoice,  and  be 
exceeding  glad  :  for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven  : 

1  Matthew  xvi.  24. 


250  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

for  so  persecuted  they  the  prophets  which  were 
before  you.' x  The  blessedness  of  the  persecuted  is 
not,  in  Christ's  view,  merely  prospective,  a  share  in 
the  future  beatitude  of  heaven  compensating  for 
present  trouble.  It  may  be  enjoyed  now.  It  comes, 
in  the  first  place,  through  an  exceptional  capacity 
for  joy.  *  Rejoice,'  says  the  Master  to  His  disciples. 
The  exhortation  means  :  '  Give  full  play  to  the  sunny, 
light-hearted  temper  with  which  you  are  favoured.' 
For  it  is  a  fact  that  the  spirit  of  the  persecuted  is 
irrepressibly  buoyant.  It  knows  nothing  of  habitual 
depression  ;  it  can  mount  up  on  wings  like  an  eagle  ; 
it  has  the  nimble  feet  of  the  hind  ;  it  can  walk,  and 
even  leap,  on  rugged,  rocky  high  places  like  the 
chamois.2  That  is  the  hero's  primary  consolation 
for  the  hardships  of  his  life.  But  there  are  other 
consolations.  He  knows,  e.g.  that  he  is  in  good 
company.  'So  persecuted  they  the  prophets.'  It 
is  a  privilege  to  be  associated  with  earth's  noblest 
ones  even  in  tribulation.  The  thought  brings  a  sus- 
taining sense  of  dignity  not  to  be  confounded  with 
vainglory,  which  is  but  its  caricature.  Then,  since 
the  Christian  era  began,  it  has  been  an  open  secret 
that  the  persecuted  suffer  not  in  vain.  They  may 
have  to  die  for  the  cause  to  which  they  are  devoted, 
but  their  lives  are  not  thrown  away.  The  sacrifice 

1  Matthew  v.  10-12.  Christ's  words  may  have  undergone  expansion 
in  this  passage,  but  the  Beatitude  as  it  stands  is  true  to  the  spirit  of 
His  teaching. 

•  Habakkuk  iii.  19. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     251 

has  redemptive  virtue.  So  Jesus  taught  in  reference 
to  His  own  case,  thereby  revealing^  through  the 
supreme  instance  a  universal  law.  *  Greatness/ He 
said  to  disciples  ambitious  to  be  first,  *  comes  by 
service ;  service  in  its  highest  form  means  self- 
sacrifice  ;  but  a  life  laid  down  in  such  sacred 
ministry  is  not  lost :  it  is  a  ransom  for  many/1 

It  is  obvious  that  these  new,  inspiring  thoughts  of 
conduct  and  lot,  and  the  cheerfulness  with  which 
they  are  uttered,  presuppose  a  new  idea  of  God. 
There  is  a  bright  light  on  the  morning  landscape, 
which,  when  we  turn  our  eyes  to  the  east,  is  seen 
to  mean  that  the  sun  has  risen.  The  sun  of  Divine 
Fatherhood  rose  on  the  world  when  Jesus  began  to 
teach.  God  is  no  longer  the  mere  Moral  Governor 
rendering  to  every  man  according  to  his  works,  but 
a  God  of  inexhaustible  patience,  not  prone  to  'mark 
iniquities,'  and  reward  accordingly,  but  removing 
transgression  from  men  as  far  as  east  is  from  west.2 
Grace  reigns  instead  of  retributive  justice,  which  has 
not  indeed  become  obsolete,  but  retires  into  the 
background  as  a  partial  truth  absorbed  into  a  larger 
whole.  Benignancy  is  the  conspicuous  attribute  of 
Providence  in  the  doctrine  of  Jesus.  This  will 
become  apparent  when  we  consider  attentively  the 
relative  sayings. 

Jesus  taught  that  the  Father  in  heaven  exercises 
a  beneficent  Providence  over  all  His  creatures : 

1  Matthew  xx.  28.  2  Psalm  ciii.  8-13. 


252  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

plants,  birds,  men,  evil  men  as  well  as  good  men ; 
and  over  all  the  interests  of  all  men.  He  clothes 
the  grass  of  the  field  with  beauty,1  such  as  we  see 
on  a  summer  day  in  a  meadow  enamelled  with 
buttercups  and  daisies.  He  feeds  the  fowls  of  the 
air.2  He  cares  both  for  the  valueless  sparrow 
devoid  of  beauty  and  of  song,  and  for  the  pro- 
pagators of  a  new,  precious  faith.  A  sparrow, 
struck  dead  it  may  be  by  a  stone  thrown  by  a 
schoolboy,  falls  not  to  the  ground  without  His 
notice ;  and  as  for  the  apostle,  the  very  hairs  of 
his  head  are  all  numbered.3  But  not  he  alone,  the 
consecrated  missionary  of  a  religion  destined  to 
bless  the  world,  is  the  object  of  providential  care. 
The  Divine  Father  regards  all  men  as  His  children, 
and  by  means  of  sun  and  rain  confers  on  them  in 
every  clime  food  and  raiment — all  things  needful 
for  temporal  well-being.4  Nor  does  He  provide 
for  their  bodily  life  alone ;  He  remembers  that 
they  are  men  made  in  His  image,  and  that  their 
spiritual  nature  needs  food  convenient.  He  does 
not  overlook  even  the  moral  outcasts ;  them  also 
He  invites  to  the  spiritual  feast.6  He  despises  not 
the  ignorant ;  He  reveals  the  things  of  the  Kingdom 
unto  'babes.'6  He  welcomes  the  return  of  the 
prodigal  to  the  forsaken  paternal  home.7  The 

1  Matthew  vi.  30.  »  Ibid.  vi.  26.  *  Ibid.  x.  29-31. 

4  Ibid.  v.  45.  •  Luke  xiv.  21. 

•  Matthew  xi.  2$.  r  Luke  xv.  11-24. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     253 

God  of  Jesus  will  have  all  men  saved  :  *  yet  there 
is  room.'1  He  is  the  Father,  not  of  jthe  few  but  of 
the  many,  not  of  the  privileged  cultured  class,  but 
of  the  uncultured,  unsanctified  mass  of  mankind ; 
and  it  is  His  desire  that  in  even  the  most  un- 
promising members  of  the  human  race  all  the 
moral  possibilities  of  man's  nature  may  be  realised. 
'Go  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.'2 

The  spiritual  welfare  of  man  is,  of  course,  in  the 
view  of  Jesus,  the  most  needful  and  worthy  object 
of  God's  care.  But  it  reveals  the  considerateness 
of  His  conception  of  Divine  Goodness  that  He 
makes  it  embrace  the  lower  interests  of  life.  Out- 
ward good  is  not,  in  His  view,  beneath  the  notice 
of  Providence.  It  is  second ;  the  Kingdom  of 
heaven  and  its  concerns  are  first  and  supreme ; 
yet  food  and  raiment  have  their  place.3  Note  here 
the  soundness  and  sanity  of  Christ's  doctrine,  as 
compared  with  the  onesided  extravagance  of  ideal 
Stoicism,  for  which  outward  good  was  a  matter  of 
indifference.  Jesus  avoids  the  falsehood  of  extremes. 
He  places  the  Kingdom  first ;  but  temporalities  are 
not  overlooked.  *  These  things  shall  be  added.'4 
*  Your  heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need 
of  all  these  things.'6  They  may  be  prayed  for. 
'Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.'6  Thus  the 
providence  of  the  Father  is  very  homely  and 

1  Luke  xiv.  22.  a  Matthew  x.  6.  *  Ibid.  vi.  33. 

4  Ibid.  vi.  33.  5  Ibid.  vi.  32.  6  Ibid.  vi.  u. 


254  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

kindly,  and  concerns  itself  about  the  humble  wants 
of  the  ordinary  man,  not  merely  about  the  sublime 
aspirations  of  the  wise  man. 

Christ's  doctrine  of  Providence  is  thus,  in  the  first 
place,  eminently  genial.  But  it  is  also  distinguished 
by  reasonableness,  judged  even  by  a  modern  scientific 
standard.  Providence  accomplishes  its  purposes 
through  what  we  call  the  course  of  nature.  The 
providential  order  and  the  natural  order  are  not 
mutually  exclusive  spheres  ;  they  are  the  same  thing 
under  different  aspects.  *  Those  things ' — food  and 
raiment  —  shall  be  added  :  how  ?  Through  the 
ordinary  action  of  sun  and  rain,  by  whose  beneficent 
influence  bread-stuffs  are  reared  and  the  raw  mate- 
rial, out  of  which  cloth  is  manufactured,  is  produced. 
God  does  for  all  what  no  man  by  any  amount  of 
care  could  do  for  himself:  adds,  viz.,  a  cubit  (and 
more)  to  the  stature  of  every  one  who  has  reached 
maturity.1  How  does  He  accomplish  that  apparently 
impossible  feat?  By  the  slow,  insensible,  noiseless 
process  of  growth,  whereby  we  pass  unawares  from 
the  stature  of  infancy  to  that  of  manhood.  That 
is  the  work  of  a  beneficent  Providence,  in  the  view 
of  Jesus.  But  it  is  not  the  miraculous  product  of 
immediate  divine  activity ;  it  is  throughout  the 
effect  of  physiological  law,  and  if  you  are  so  minded 
you  can  exclude  Providence  altogether  and  make  it 
throughout  an  affair  of  vital  mechanics.  It  is  just 
1  Matthew  vi,  27. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     255 

the  same  in  the  higher  region  of  the  spirit.  God 
gives  the  Kingdom,the  first  object  of  desire,  to  His 
servants,  as  He  gives  to  them  food  and  raiment,  and 
increase  of  bodily  stature.  How?  Again  by  the 
operation  of  natural  law.  'So  is  the  kingdom  of 
God,  as  if  a  man  should  cast  seed  into  the  ground ; 
and  should  sleep  and  rise,  night  and  day,  and  the 
seed  should  spring  and  grow  up,  he  knoweth  not 
how.  For  the  earth  bringeth  forth  fruit  of  herself; 
first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn 
in  the  ear.'1  The  coming  of  the  Kingdom  in  the 
individual  and  in  the  community  is  a  matter  of 
growth,  just  like  the  coming  of  bread,  gradual 
growth  passing  through  well-marked  stages,  like  the 
growth  of  grain  under  the  influence  of  sun  and 
shower — first  blade,  then  ear,  then  ripe  corn.  The 
whole  process  is  so  natural  that  one  who  thinks  of 
divine  action  as  occasional,  transcendent,  arresting, 
will  be  apt  to  inquire :  Where  is  the  hand  of  God, 
where  is  His  spirit  ? 

Christ's  doctrine  of  Providence  is  manifestly  of 
an  optimistic  character.  His  conception  of  God  is 
optimistic.  God  is  a  Father,  and  His  spirit  is 
benign.  His  idea  of  the  world  is  not  less  optimistic. 
The  course  of  nature  lends  itself  as  a  pliant  instru- 
ment for  the  working  out  of  the  Divine  Father's 
beneficent  purposes. 

But  is  this  optimistic  view  of  Providence  not  con- 
1  Mark  iv.  26*28. 


256  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

tradicted  by  facts?  It  seems  to  be,  and  Jesus  was 
not  ignorant  of  this  ;  nor  did  He  pass  over  in  discreet 
silence  whatever  appeared  irreconcilable  with  His 
sunny  faith.  The  dark  side  of  nature,  indeed,  He 
did  not  discourse  on  ;  but  He  boldly  faced  the 
discouraging  phases  of  human  experience.  In  our 
study  on  Job  we  had  occasion  to  note  a  distinction 
made  in  the  utterances  of  the  afflicted  man  between 
the  God  of  appearance  and  the  God  of  reality.  I 
now  remark  that  Christ  was  fully  alive  to  the  neces- 
sity of  making  this  distinction.  He  has  made  it 
with  a  vividness  and  impressiveness  which  leave  the 
impassioned  words  of  Job  far  behind.  The  parables 
of  the  Selfish  Neighbour  and  the  Unjust  Judge^ 
depict  God  as  He  appears  in  Providence  to  faith 
sorely  tried  by  the  delayed  fulfilment  of  desires. 
The  didactic  drift  of  both  is :  Pray  on,  delay  not- 
withstanding ;  you  shall  ultimately  prevail.  In  both, 
the  power  of  persistence  to  obtain  benefit  sought  is 
most  felicitously  illustrated.  The  man  in  bed  can 
be  compelled  by  '  shameless '  knocking  to  give  what 
is  asked,  were  it  only  to  be  rid  of  a  disturbance 
which  would  be  fatal  to  sleep.  It  is,  of  course,  very 
rude,  unmannerly,  even  indecent,  to  continue  knock- 
ing in  the  circumstances.  Any  one  would  desist 
who  had  the  smallest  regard  to  propriety.  But  the 
man  outside  the  door  has  no  regard  to  propriety. 
He  is  desperate,  and  without  compunction  goes  on 
1  Luke  xi.  5-8;  xviii.  1-7. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     257 

using  his  power  o^annoyance  till  he  gains  his 
end, — a  supply  of  loaves  to  meet  the  emergency. 
Similarly  in  the  case  of  the  unjust  judge.  He 
neither  fears  God  nor  regards  man,  as  he  con- 
fesses with  cynical  frankness ;  but  he  has  a  very 
pronounced  regard  to  his  own  comfort.  He  hates 
bother,  and  as  the  widow  in  her  frantic  deter- 
mination to  get  justice  seems  likely  to  give  him 
plenty  of  it,  he  decides  the  cause  in  her  favour  to 
get  quit  of  her. 

The  relevancy  of  these  parabolic  narratives  to  the 
moral  they  are  designed  to  point  requires  us  to 
regard  the  two  unlovable  characters  depicted  as 
representing  God  as  He  appears  in  Providence  to 
tried  faith.  In  the  weary  time  of  delayed  fulfilment 
He  seems  as  unfriendly  as  the  man  in  bed,  as 
indifferent  to  right  as  the  unprincipled  judge.  No 
more  unfavourable  view  of  the  divine  character 
could  be  suggested.  But  in  the  case  of  Jesus  such 
dark  thoughts  of  God  have  their  source,  not  in  per- 
sonal doubt,  as  in  the  case  of  Job,  but  in  acute 
sympathy  with  perplexed  souls. 

In  both  the  parables,  which  have  for  their  common 
aim  to  inculcate  perseverance  in  prayer,  the  chief 
object  of  desire  is  supposed  to  be  the  interests  of  the 
divine  kingdom.  It  is  therefore  important  to  notice 
that  delay  in  the  fulfilment  of  desire  is  regarded  by 
Christ  as  a  likely  experience  even  in  this  region. 
Men  have  to  wait  even  here.  They  cannot  obtain 

R 


258  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

moral  benefit,  spiritual  good,  for  themselves  or  for 
others,  off-hand.  Jesus  regards  that  as  a  certain 
fact,  and  He  makes  no  complaint.  It  is  God's  way 
in  the  moral  order  of  the  world,  and  it  is  right 
— such  is  His  fixed,  unalterable  conviction.  Com- 
paratively few  thoroughly  realise  the  fact ;  fewer 
still  are  completely  reconciled  to  it  as  fitting  and 
reasonable.  Why,  men  are  inclined  to  ask,  should 
the  kingdom  of  God  not  come  per  saltum  ?  Why 
should  the  realisation  of  the  moral  ideal  in  the 
individual,  or  in  the  race,  be  a  matter  of  slow  pro- 
cess during  which  hope  deferred  makes  the  heart 
sick  ?  Could  the  process  not  be  accelerated,  or  even 
resolved  into  an  instantaneous  consummation,  by 
sufficiently  earnest  desire  ?  Christ  says,  No :  though 
you  break  your  heart  it  will  be  a  slow  movement,  a 
gradual  growth  from  seed  to  fruit.  Growth  is  the 
law  of  the  natural  world ;  it  is  also  the  law  of  the 
spiritual  world.  This  great  truth  Jesus  taught  in 
the  most  explicit  manner  and  with  exquisite  felicity 
in  the  parable  of  the  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  full 
Corn.  No  more  significant  statement  of  it  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Bible,  or  indeed  anywhere  else.  By 
the  utterance  of  this  word  Jesus  showed  himself 
more  philosophic  than  some  modern  philosophers, 
who,  while  recognising  the  universal  sway  of  the  law 
of  growth  or  evolution,  maintain  that  process  in  the 
moral  sphere  is  inadmissible  on  theistic  principles. 
A  God  infinite  in  goodness  and  might  must  make 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     259 

the  moral  world  perfecoat  once.1  From  the  parable 
just  referred  to,  as  well  as  from  the  two  parables 
inculcating  perseverance  in  prayer,  it  is  clear  that 
Christ  felt  no  such  difficulty.  He  accepted  process 
as  the  law  of  the  moral  world,  and  He  saw  in  it 
no  reflection  on  divine  goodness  and  power.  The 
paternal  love  of  God  appeared  to  Him  to  be  suffi- 
ciently vindicated  by  the  result.  Eventual  fulfilment 
of  aspiration  supplied  an  adequate  theodicy.  The 
Father  in  heaven,  whose  character  undergoes  eclipse 
for  weak  faith  during  the  period  of  waiting,  is  shown 
to  be  in  reality  worthy  of  His  name  if,  after  years  in 
the  case  of  the  individual,  or  after  centuries  in  the 
case  of  a  community,  spiritual  desire  be  at  length 
satisfied.  If  Jesus  Christ  had  lived  in  our  time,  and 
had  heard  Mr.  John  Fiske  bring  his  indictment 
against  the  theistic  creed  on  the  ground  that  the 
moral  progress  of  society  is  a  matter  of  slow  secular 
growth,  He  would  have  administered  to  him  the 
gentle  rebuke  :  Man,  where  is  thy  faith  ? 

The  faith  of  Jesus  in  the  benignity  of  Providence 
was  absolute.  While  fully  acknowledging  all  the 
facts  on  which  the  pessimist  might  construct  his 
dismal  creed  of  a  non-moral  or  malignant  Deity,  He 
claimed  for  the  Divine  Father  implicit  trust.  *  Take 
no  thought  for  the  morrow/2  He  said  to  His  disciples 
on  the  hill.  The  counsel  implies  cheerful  confidence 

1  Vide  The  Providential  Order  of  the  World— my  first  course  of 
Gifford  Lectures — p.  137.  2  Matthew  vi.  34. 


260  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

in  the  future,  assurance  that  under  the  Providence  of 
the  Father  all  will  go  well.  Not  that  the  possibility 
of  evil  on  the  morrow  is  denied.  It  is  recognised 
that  each  future  day  may  have  its  own  trouble.1 
But  the  Master's  advice  to  disciples  is :  Wait  till  it 
comes ;  do  not  anticipate  evil.  And  He  means, 
though  He  does  not  say,  When  the  day  comes  its 
evil  will  be  transmuted  into  good  ;  the  things  that 
beforehand  seem  to  be  against  you  will,  on  their 
arrival,  be  found  to  be  in  your  favour.  Leave  your 
times  in  God's  hands. 

Jesus  lived  His  own  philosophy;  witness  that 
sublime  devotional  utterance:  'I  thank  thee,  O 
Father'!2  For  what  does  He  give  thanks?  For 
the  boon  of  a  few  illiterate  disciples  who  lovingly 
follow  Him  while  the  scholars  and  religionists  of 
Israel  treat  Him  with  disdain.  Their  unbelief  is  the 
evil  of  the  day,  and  in  view  of  it  the  prayer  of  Jesus 
looks  like  an  act  of  resignation  under  defeat.  But 
it  is  more  than  that.  Jesus  speaks,  not  under 
depression,  but  in  buoyant  hopefulness.  In  the 
adhesion  of  the  ' babes'  He  sees  the  promise  and 
potency  of  a  great  future  for  His  cause.  Hence  the 
note  of  triumph:  'All  things  have  been  delivered 
unto  Me  of  My  Father/  which  means,  '  The  future  is 
Mine ;  the  faith  I  preach  shall  become  the  faith  of 
the  world.  Scornful  Rabbis  and  haughty  Pharisees 

1  xaicia :  physical,  not  moral  evil. 

2  Matthew  xi.  25-30;  Luke  x.  21,  22. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     261 

\ 

will  pass  away,  and  these  little  ones  will  grow  into 

a  great  community  of  men  in  every  land  who  shall 
worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth.'  What 
spiritual  insight  is  here !  What  power  to  estimate 
the  relative  force  of  contemporary  currents  of 
thought,  to  discern  in  the  belief  of  babes  a  more 
potent  factor  than  the  unbelief  of  influential  religious 
leaders,  the  representatives  and  strenuous  upholders 
of  a  venerable  but  decadent  tradition  !  What  faith 
in  the  law  of  growth  :  calm  conviction  that  the  little 
one  shall  become  a  thousand,  the  small  one  a  strong 
nation,  the  handful  of  corn  scattered  on  the  moun- 
tain top  a  mighty  harvest  waving  in  the  wind  of 
autumn  !  How  impossible  depression  for  one  pos- 
sessing such  insight,  such  unlimited  reliance  on  the 
action  of  moral  laws,  such  sunny  trust  in  the  good- 
will of  the  Father ! 

Such  trust,  habitually  practised  by  Jesus  under 
extreme  difficulties,  is  possible  for  all,  and  worth 
cultivating.  It  banishes  from  the  heart  care  and 
fear.  Where  it  is,  the  diviner's  occupation  is  gone. 
What  chance  is  there  for  the  fortune-teller  with  one 
who  does  not  want  to  know  what  the  future  will 
bring?  He  does  not  want  to  know  in  detail,  because 
he  knows  already  in  general  that  all  will  be  well. 
The  childlike  trust  in  a  paternal  Providence  incul- 
cated by  Christ  is  one  of  the  forces  by  which  the 
Christian  religion  is  raising  the  world  above 
Paganism.  Paganism  has  three  characteristics  :  (i) 


262  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

It  cherishes  low  ideals ;  material  good  is  its  summtim 
bonum  :  '  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek.' 1 
(2)  It  is  not  a  religion  of  trust :  it  is  not  sure  that 
God  cares  for  man.  (3)  It  seeks  after  diviners  to 
reveal  a  future  which  is  dark,  and  whose  uncertainty 
appeals  at  once  to  hope  and  to  fear.  Christ's  teach- 
ing cuts  the  roots  of  all  three  defects.  It  lifts  the 
heart  up  to  higher  things  than  food  and  raiment. 
It  tells  us  that  God  is  a  Father  who  loves  and  cares 
for  men  as  His  children.  It  promises  good,  what- 
ever betide,  to  those  who  live  for  the  highest. 

About  the  loftiness  of  Christ's  ideal  of  life  there 
will  be  no  dispute.  It  may,  however,  be  questioned 
whether  it  be  not  too  high  and  one-sided,  treating 
the  Kingdom  of  heaven  not  merely  as  supreme,  but 
as  everything,  and  all  else — the  world  of  nature,  the 
present  life,  secular  interests  and  callings,  social 
well-being — as  nothing.  To  this  question  it  might 
be  enough  to  reply  that  such  a  way  of  contemplating 
the  universe  is  more  Aryan  than  Semitic,  more 
Indian  than  Hebrew.  The  Hebrew,  as  we  see  him 
in  the  Old  Testament,  took  a  firm  hold  of  the  pre- 
sent material  world,  and  a  very  slight  hold  of  the 
world  to  come.  The  life  beyond,  indeed,  at  least 
in  the  earlier  period,  seems  to  have  had  a  very  small 
place  in  his  mind.  But  the  lapse  of  time  brought 
considerable  modifications  in  Hebrew  thought. 
Gentile  ideas  gradually  obtained  an  entrance 

1  Matthew  vi,  32. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE     263 

into  the  Jewish  creed,  and  faith  in  immortality  as- 
sumed an  importance  in  the  post-captivity  period 
which  it  did  not  possess  in  ancient  ages.  This  faith 
Jesus  espoused  and  preached  with  emphasis,  and  it 
is  not  inconceivable  that  the  dazzling  light  of  the 
eternal  world  might  extinguish  for  His  eye  the 
feeble  starlight  of  time.  But  we  have  ample  evi- 
dence that  nature,  time,  sense,  the  transient  and 
the  temporal,  counted  for  something  in  His  esteem. 
In  the  first  place,  the  physical  world  could  not 
be  a  nullity  for  one  who  found  in  it,  everywhere, 
God.  That  world,  in  the  view  of  Jesus,  was  the 
habitation  of  God — a  theatre  in  which  God's  power 
and  beneficence  were  displayed.  God  does  all 
that  happens  therein :  clothes  the  lily  with  beauty, 
feeds  the  birds,  sends  sunshine  and  rain  in  their 
season,  makes  the  child  grow  from  the  tiny  dimen- 
sions of  infancy  to  the  full  stature  of  manhood. 
Then  all  in  nature  that  appeals  to  the  senses 
was  for  Jesus  a  source  of  intense  aesthetic  enjoy- 
ment. '  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these.'1  What  a  keen  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  in  its  simplest  form,  as  seen  even  in 
the  wayside  wild-flowers,  is  revealed  in  that  reflec- 
tion !  It  could  not  have  been  uttered  by  any  man 
of  ascetic  habit  and  morbid  fanatical  mood.  A  man 
of  this  type  would  not  notice  the  charm  of  the  lily, 
or  the  sweet  song  and  graceful  movement  of  the 

1  Matthew  vi.  29. 


264  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

lark,  or  the  music  of  a  mountain  stream.  Even  the 
sublimity  of  the  thunder-storm,  so  eloquently  de- 
picted in  the  epilogue  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
would  scarcely  succeed  in  arresting  his  attention. 
'Descended  the  rain,  came  the  floods,  blew  the 
winds ' — it  was  not  a  weary-of-the-world  hermit  who 
drew  that  picture.  The  world  of  nature  had  a  value 
for  Jesus  such  as  it  has  for  a  poet  or  a  painter. 

Human  life  also,  with  its  ordinary  occupations, 
had  substantial  meaning  for  the  Galilaean  Teacher. 
This  appears  from  realistic  descriptions  of  scenes 
from  common  every-day  life  contained  in  several  of 
the  parables,  e.g.  the  housewife  leavening  the  dough 
or  searching  for  a  lost  coin,  the  shepherd  going 
after  the  straying  sheep,  the  farmer  taking  life 
leisurely  between  the  seed-time  and  the  harvest.  It 
may  be  said,  indeed,  that  these  are  simply  incidental 
references  in  parabolic  narratives  wherein  the 
natural  is  utilised  to  emblem  the  spiritual.  But  the 
point  to  be  noted  is  that  the  spiritual  use  pre- 
supposes lively,  sympathetic  interest  in  the  natural. 
The  scenes  introduced  into  the  parables  would  not 
have  occurred  to  the  mind  of  one  who  had  not  a 
genuine  love  for  the  common  ways  and  work  of 
men,  as  these  might  be  seen  in  and  around  Nazareth  ; 
still  less  would  they  have  been  so  felicitously  de- 
picted. In  His  parabolic  teaching  Jesus  is  shown 
not  merely  as  a  sage,  but  as  a  man  with  a  poet's 
eye,  and  with  a  kindly  human  heart  Impossible 


CHRIST'S  TEACHIjfc  ON  PROVIDENCE     265 

for  Him  to  say :  What  boots  all  that  daily  toil  from 
dawn  to  sunset?  It  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit; 
the  Kingdom  of  heaven  and  the  life  beyond  alone 
deserve  a  thought. 

The  healing  ministry  of  Jesus  has  much  signifi- 
cance as  an  indication  of  a  rational  interest  in  the 
physical  well-being  of  man.  This  department  of 
Christ's  activity  has  been  a  battle-ground  of  natur- 
alistic critics  and  supernaturalistic  apologists,  the 
former  concerned  to  eliminate  it  from  an  otherwise 
attractive  story,  the  latter  bent  on  utilising  it  as 
a  miraculous  attestation  of  the  evangelic  doctrine. 
The  relation  of  the  healing  acts  to  physical  law  has 
monopolised  attention.  It  is  time  to  turn  away 
from  that  comparatively  barren  debate,  and  to  con- 
sider more  carefully  the  healing  ministry  as  a 
revelation  of  the  spirit  of  the  worker*  When  thought 
is  concentrated  on  this  topic,  the  curative  phase  of 
Christ's  public  life  ceases  to  repel  as  a  thaumaturgic 
display  which  one  would  gladly  forget,  and  is  seen 
to  possess  permanent  didactic  value.  Duly  to 
estimate  that  value  we  must  begin  by  accepting  the 
healing  ministry  as  an  emphatic  reality.  It  is  a 
simple  fact  that  Jesus  healed  disease  extensively, 
one  might  say  systematically ;  a  fact  all  the  more 
remarkable  that  activity  of  that  kind  on  a  great 
scale  was  a  new  thing  in  the  history  of  the  religious 
teachers  of  Israel.  The  bare  fact,  altogether  apart 
from  the  apparently  preternatural  character  of  some 


266  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  the  cures,  is  full  of  significance.  Suppose  there 
was  nothing  unusual  in  any  of  them,  and  that  Jesus 
simply  did  what  ordinary  physicians  were  doing 
every  day,  still  it  would  be  worthy  of  remark  that 
He  too  did  such  things.  He,  the  herald  of  the  King- 
dom of  God,  the  original,  inspired  Teacher  of  lofty, 
spiritual  thought,  did  not  disdain  to  play  the 
physician's  part.  The  human  body  was  not  be- 
neath His  notice.  Physical  health  interested  Him. 
He  was  the  sworn  foe  of  disease.  He  wanted  all 
men  to  enjoy  life  while  it  lasted,  to  have  the  full  use 
of  their  eyes  and  ears  and  hands  and  feet,  to  be 
sound  and  sane  in  body  and  in  soul.  The  humanity 
of  all  this  is,  of  course,  apparent,  but  the  thing  to 
be  specially  noted  in  the  present  connection  is  the 
evidence  supplied  by  the  healing  ministry  that  the 
healer  was  free  from  all  morbid,  one-sided  spiritualism 
which  despises  the  body  and  thinks  it  does  not 
matter  in  what  condition  the  earthly  tabernacle 
may  be  during  the  short  time  the  immortal  soul 
occupies  it  as  a  tenant.  This  healer  throws  Himself 
into  this  humble  part  of  His  work  with  the  enthusi- 
asm which  a  less  many-sided  man  would  have 
reserved  for  the  higher  function  of  teaching.  He 
regards  this  work  as  in  accordance  with  God's  will, 
nay,  as  God's  own  work.  He  claims  to  cast  out 
devils  '  by  the  finger  of  God.' l  The  cure  of  the 
maniac  of  Gadara  is,  through  Him,  an  act  of  divine 
1  Luke  xi.  20. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHllfc  ON  PROVIDENCE     267 

Providence.  Whatever  makes  for  health  has  the 
sanction  and  blessing  of  the  Father  in  heaven.  And 
the  presumption  is  that  the  world  that  Father  has 
made  is  amply  stored  with  the  means  of  health, 
that  a  remedy  for  every  disease  is  hidden  somewhere 
in  nature,  that  the  day  will  come  when  there  will 
be  no  malady  under  which  man  suffers  which 
medical  skill  will  not  know  how  to  conquer.  That 
Jesus  cherished  this  hopeful  creed  is  a  fair  inference 
from  the  well-attested  fact  that,  as  He  went  about 
from  place  to  place,  He  never  failed  to  lay  a  healing 
hand  on  the  bodies  of  the  sick. 

'  Christ's  doctrine  of  man  supplies  good  ground  for 
the  faith  that  social  well-being  falls  within  the  scope 
of  Divine  Providence.  It  does  not  teach  or  imply 
that  social  health  is  the  chief  end  for  God.  That 
prerogative  it  assigns  to  the  Kingdom  of  God,  which 
in  the  first  place  means  an  order  in  which  right  re- 
lations are  established  between  man  and  God.  But 
the  doctrine  involves  that  social  health  will  be  a 
secondary  result  of  the  chief  end  being  realised. 
Jesus  taught  generally  that  man  as  such,  in  virtue 
of  his  human  attributes,  is  inherently  superior  to  the 
beasts.  'Are  ye  not  much  better  than  they?'1 — i.e. 
than  the  birds.  *  How  much  is  a  man  better  than 
a  sheep?'2  The  fact  is  stated  in  the  first  case  as 
justifying  the  assertion  that  man  is  an  object  of 
special  care  to  God,  in  the  second  as  supporting  a 

1  Matthew  vi.  26.  z  Ibid.  xii.  12. 


268  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

claim  on  behalf  of  every  man  to  benevolent  treat- 
ment by  his  fellow-men.  Jesus  taught  further,  and 
more  specifically,  that  man  as  such  stands  inde- 
feasibly  in  the  relation  of  a  son  to  God.  All  men 
indiscriminately  are  God's  sons,  the  only  difference 
being  that  some  by  divine  grace,  and  in  virtue  of 
their  spirit  and  life,  are  worthy  to  be  called  sons, 
while  others  are  not  worthy  of  the  honourable  appel- 
lation. God  treats  all  as  sons,  performing  a  father's 
part  towards  them  according  to  the  requirements 
of  each  case.  Hence  arise  for  all  men  certain 
obligations.  The  first  and  fundamental  obligation 
is  to  realise  the  dignity  of  man.  It  is  the  duty  of 
all  to  respect  themselves  and  to  respect  each  other, 
as  men.  It  is  incumbent  on  every  man  to  remember 
that  he  is  by  nature  better  than  a  beast,  and  to  be 
in  life  superior  to  the  lower  animals.  It  is  incum- 
bent on  every  man  to  treat  his  fellow- men  as  better 
than  a  sheep  or  an  ox,  or  a  horse.  The  next  duty 
arising  out  of  Christ's  doctrine  of  man  is  to  cherish 
and  give  practical  effect  to  the  sense  of  a  common 
brotherhood.  Sons  of  God,  therefore  brethren.  All 
sons  of  God,  therefore  all  brethren,  whether  re- 
generate or  unregenerate,  religious  or  irreligious, 
Christian  or  heathen.  Finally,  there  is  the  obligation 
to  acquiesce  in  no  cleavage  between  man  and  man 
as  absolute  and  insurmountable.  Chasms  must  be 
bridged,  partition-walls  broken  down,  common 
humanity  asserted  against  all  that  divides  and 


CHRIST'S  TEACHltffr  ON  PROVIDENCE    269 

alienates.  Wherever  this  obligation  is  virtually 
denied,  the  Christian  faith,  though  formally  con- 
fessed, is  renounced  in  spirit. 

Christ  loyally  worked  out  the  logical  implications 
of  His  own  teaching.  He  treated  the  lowest  and 
worst  of  men  as  still  a  man,  and  therefore  a  potential 
son  of  God.  He  despised  no  man  ;  He  despaired 
of  no  man.  He  maintained  fraternal,  comrade-like 
relations  with  men  whom  one  might  be  strongly 
tempted  to  despise  and  despair  of.  He  entered  into 
friendly  relations  with  classes  which  on  political, 
moral,  or  religious  grounds  were  shunned  as  social 
outcasts.  If  there  was  anything  settled  in  current 
Jewish  opinion,  it  was  that  a  publican  was  to  be 
treated  as  an  unclean  Pagan.  Jesus  dared  to  dis- 
regard this  deep-rooted  prejudice,  and  met  and  ate 
with  publicans.1  By  so  doing  He  implicitly  pro- 
claimed a  great  principle,  admitting  of  manifold 
applications  ;  this,  viz.,  that  no  class  of  men  may, 
on  any  account,  be  allowed  to  fall  into  or  remain  in 
the  position  of  persons  having  no  claims  on  their 
fellow-men  to  human  relationship,  fair  treatment, 
and  friendly  offices.  The  working  out  of  this 
principle  would  of  itself  go  a  long  way  towards 
bringing  social  health  to  a  community.  When  it  is 
considered  how  many  class  distinctions  still  exist 
which  are,  or  tend  to  become,  inhuman,  and  how 
extensively  the  spirit  of  class  interest  and  class 

1  Matthew  ix.  9-13. 


270  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

pride  still  prevails,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  plenty 
of  scope  for  the  application  of  the  principle.  Its 
thorough-going  application  would  not  necessarily 
mean  the  abolition  of  distinctions.  There  might 
still  be  rich  and  poor,  high-born  and  low-born, 
employers  and  employed.  Distinctions  essentially 
inhuman,  or  powerfully  gravitating  towards  in- 
humanity and  barbarism,  the  principle,  taken  in  dead 
earnest,  would  sweep  away.  Hence  the  disappear- 
ance in  European  civilisation  of  slavery,  which  at 
length  became  intolerable  to  the  Christian  spirit. 
There  are  distinctions  which  cannot  be  abolished, 
e.g.  that  based  on  colour.  No  amount  of  Christianity 
can  make  the  skin  of  a  black  man  white.  But  a 
Christianity  worthy  of  the  name  ought  to  be  able 
to  humanise  the  relations  between  black  men  and 
white  men.  It  is  a  hard  problem  for  a  community 
where  the  two  races  co-exist ;  but  not  harder  than 
the  problems  with  which  the  apostolic  Church  had 
to  deal — those  arising  out  of  the  distinctions  between 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  and  between  freemen  and  bonds- 
men, successfully  solved  by  the  union  of  both  classes 
in  one  faith  and  fellowship. 

Reviewing  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  range  of 
providential  action  as  conceived  by  Jesus,  we  find 
it  to  be  very  comprehensive.  God's  providence 
embraces  all  men  and  all  human  interests,  and  its 
aim  is  to  make  the  life  of  man  full  of  righteousness, 
peace,  and  pure  hallowed  joy.  It  is  the  enemy  of 


CHRIST'S  TEACHIN^  ON  PROVIDENCE     271 

all  evil ;  of  moral  evil  first,  of  physical  evil  in  the 
second  place.  Its  goal  is  the  redemption  of  man 
from  all  evil. 

But  how  is  there  evil  at  all  in  a  world  presided 
over  by  so  beneficent  a  Being?  Is  He  subject 
to  some  fatal  limitation  of  power?  Not  so  thought 
Jesus.  He  conceived  of  the  Divine  Father  as  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  i.e.  of  the  whole  universe. 
How  evil  came  into  the  world  He  does  not  in 
any  of  His  recorded  words  explain.  He  deals  with 
evil  as  a  fact.  He  sees  it  all  around,  in  the  heart 
and  in  the  life,  in  the  individual  and  in  the  com- 
munity, among  the  religious  not  less  than  among 
the  irreligious ;  and  He  makes  it  His  business  to 
fight  it  wherever  He  sees  it.  But  He  does  not  seem 
to  have  theorised  about  the  origin  of  evil.  In  par- 
ticular, there  is  no  trace  of  theoretic  dualism  in  the 
Gospels.  There  is  indeed  a  malign  being  who  flits 
like  a  ghost  over  the  evangelic  pages.  He  is  men- 
tioned a  few  times  in  later  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  during  the  period  between  the  close 
of  the  Hebrew  Canon  and  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era  he  seems  to  have  attained  increasing 
definiteness  of  shape  and  width  of  function  in 
popular  Jewish  theology.  His  name  is  Satan,  alias 
Beelzebub.  He  is  represented  as  working  mischief 
in  two  ways :  killing  souls  by  tempting  to  moral 
unfaithfulness,1  taking  baleful  possession  of  men's 

1  Matthew  x.  28  ;  xvi.  23. 


272  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

bodies  in  connection  with  diseases  which  present  to 
the  eye  the  appearance  of  subjection  to  a  foreign 
power — such  as  insanity,  epilepsy,  rheumatism.1 

This  conception  appeals  to  the  religious  imagina- 
tion, giving  to  evil  the  aspect  of  an  awful  mystery, 
and  it  makes  it  possible  to  think  of  man  as  a  victim 
rather  than  as  the  sole  or  prime  agent  in  sin.  Some 
are  of  opinion  that  Satan  was  not  more  than  a 
convenient  pictorial  thought  for  the  mind  of  Jesus. 
That  He  used  current  ideas  with  a  measure  of 
freedom  is  evident  from  His  identifying  the  Elijah 
that  was  expected  to  appear  with  John  the  Baptist. 
In  any  case,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  He  re- 
garded the  idea  as  offering  an  adequate  explanation 
of  the  evil  that  is  in  man  and  in  the  world.  He 
did  not  assign  to  Satan  the  place  of  antigod,  but 
only  that  of  an  adversary  who  can  be  controlled 
and  subdued.  As  a  tempter  he  can  be  foiled,  not 
only  by  the  Father  in  heaven,  but  by  any  son  of  man 
on  earth  who  with  pure,  firm  will  says  to  him, '  Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan.'2  As  a  tyrant,  in  person 
or  by  deputy,  over  men's  bodies  through  disease,  he 
can  be  cast  out  of  his  victims  by  the  finger  or  spirit 
of  God,  as  lightning  is  ejected  from  the  clouds  in  a 
thunder-storm.8 

1  Matthew  viii.  28-34;  xvii.  14-18;  Luke  xiii.  10-13.  Beelzebub 
possesses  men  through  the  devils  of  which  he  is  prince.  The  Scribes 
seem  to  have  thought  Jesus  an  incarnation  of  Beelzebub.  They  said, 
'  He  hath  Beelzebub  '  (Mark  iii.  22). 

9  Matthew  iv.  10 ;  xvL  23.  *  Luke  x.  18. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHINOON  PROVIDENCE     273 

Some  forms  of  evil  are  ascribed  directly  to  divine 
agency  in  the  teaching  of  Christ ;  such,  viz.,  as  can 
be  viewed  as  the  penalty  of  moral  transgression.  To 
this  category  belonged  the  spiritual  blindness  of 
the  Scribes.  God  sent  it  upon  them  as  the  punish- 
ment of  their  self-complacency  and  self-righteous- 
ness. 'Thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise 
and  prudent.'1  To  the  same  category  belonged 
the  fearful  ruin  which,  a  generation  later,  overtook 
the  Jewish  nation,  the  natural  result  of  the  judicial 
blindness  of  its  religious  leaders.  That  ruin  also 
Jesus  regarded  as  the  work  of  the  Father  in  heaven. 
'What  shall  therefore  the  lord  of  the  vineyard  do? 
He  will  come  and  destroy  the  husbandmen,  and  will 
give  the  vineyard  unto  others.'2  The  impending 
judgment  of  Israel  He  foretold  as  certain  and  ac- 
quiesced in  as  right.  It  is  at  this  point  that  Jesus 
comes  into  closest  contact  with  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phets. They  were  largely  prophets  of  judgment. 
He,  too,  was  a  prophet  of  judgment,  though  not 
principally  or  by  preference.  In  the  exercise  of  this 
function  He  was  severe.  But  severity  was  tempered 
by  tender  pathos,  as  in  the  piteous  lament,  '  O  Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem!'8  In  that  lament  He  protested 
that  He  had  tried  to  save  the  holy  city  and  the 
people  it  represented.  It  was  no  vain  boast.  Jesus 
had  not  only  tried  to  save  Israel,  but  He  would 
have  succeeded  had  that  infatuated  people  laid  to 

1  Matthew  xi.  25.  2  Mark  xii.  9.  3  Matthew  xxiii.  37. 

S 


274  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

heart  His  words.  He  had  sought  to  save  His  country- 
men by  exposing  the  delusions  and  vices  of  their 
religious  guides,  and  by  emancipating  their  minds 
from  the  idolatry  of  legal  tradition  and  from  the 
spell  of  a  spurious  Messianic  hope.  If  they  had 
listened  to  Him,  they  would  have  been  saved.  If 
they  had  accepted  Him  as  their  Messiah,  instead  of 
clinging  to  the  vain  expectation  of  a  Christ  who 
would  restore  Israel  to  political  independence,  they 
would  have  become  a  regenerate  people  at  peace 
with  God  and  safe  under  the  yoke  of  Rome.  But 
they  'would  not.'  They  rejected  and  crucified  the 
true  Christ,  cherished  their  fond  Messianic  dream, 
fought  for  it  with  the  obstinacy  which  only  religious 
fanaticism  can  inspire,  and  perished  in  the  unequal 
struggle.  What  a  tragedy  it  was  we  know  from 
contemporary  historians.  With  the  clear  eye  of  a 
prophet  Jesus  foresaw  it  all,  not  without  tears,  but 
without  rebellion  against  the  will  of  Providence. 
In  the  judgment  of  Israel  He  saw  the  righteous 
moral  order  of  the  world  asserting  itself.  He  bowed 
His  head,  and  said  in  effect :  '  Even  so,  Father,  for 
so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy  sight.' 

We  thus  see  that  Christ's  doctrine  of  Divine  Pro- 
vidence had  its  stern  side.  It  was  not  an  insipid 
optimism.  It  could  look  awful  facts  in  the  face. 
It  presented  to  faith  a  genial,  winsome  idea  of  God 
as  Father,  in  which  grace  or  benignity  had  the 
dominant  place.  But  retributive  justice  is  not 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING^N  PROVIDENCE     275 

excluded  or  slurred  over.  The  Father  will  have  all 
men  saved,  and  spares  no  pains  to  bring  sinners 
to  repentance;  but  they  who  being  often  reproved 
harden  their  neck  must  at  last  be  destroyed.  So 
it  is  in  the  world  of  fact,  so  it  is  also  in  Christ's 
world  of  theory.  He  does  not  impose  on  facts  a 
theoretic  conception  with  which  they  cannot  be 
made  to  square.  He  simply  reads  the  world  with 
enlightened  eyes,  and  frames  His  idea  of  God  to 
correspond.  He  finds  in  the  world  national  cata- 
strophes like  that  of  Israel,  and  He  recognises  these 
as  the  work  of  God  acting  as  Ruler  through  the 
eternal  laws  of  the  moral  order.  But  this  dark 
aspect  of  Providence  does  not  blind  His  mind  to 
the  paternal  benignancy  of  God  which  He  makes 
it  His  main  business  to  proclaim.  A  benign  God 
is  His  gospel.  The  Lord  God  is  for  Him  not  mainly 
a  Storm-God,  but  above  all  a  sun  and  a  shield. 
Jesus  preferred  to  think  so  of  God.  He  believed 
also  that  the  facts  of  history  justified  Him  in  so 
thinking. 

The  methods  by  which  Providence  works  out  its 
beneficent  designs — election,  solidarity,  and  sacrifice1 
—  find  distinct,  if  not  copious,  recognition  in  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  He  was  conscious  of  being  Him- 
self an  Elect  Man,  one  charged  with  a  mission,  *  sent 
unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.'  He 

1  Vide  The  Providential  Order  of  the  World,  Lectures  X.,  XI., 
XII. 


276  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

acted  on  the  principle  of  election  in  the  execution 
of  His  own  plans.  '  He  ordained  twelve  that  they 
should  be  with  Him,  and  that  He  might  send  them 
forth  to  preach.'1  He  explained  by  apt  emblems 
the  nature  or  aim  of  election,  as  a  destination,  not 
to  exceptional  privilege,  but  to  a  beneficent  function 
for  the  benefit  of  others.  'Ye  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth/  'ye  are  the  light  of  the  world,'2  He  said 
to  chosen  disciples.  He  acknowledged  the  prin- 
ciple of  solidarity  when  He  gave  to  these  disciples 
the  direction,  'Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men, 
that  they  may  see  your  good  works.'  This  rule 
may  be  violated  in  two  ways :  by  hiding  the  light 
in  fear  of  trouble,  or  by  removing  it  too  far  away 
from  the  eye  of  the  beholder.  The  former  is  the 
mistake  chiefly  in  view,  but  both  may  be  held  to 
be  covered  by  the  prescription  of  the  Master.  He 
would  have  His  disciples,  in  the  performance  of 
their  duty  as  the  propagators  of  a  new  religion, 
show  respect  for  the  law  of  solidarity  in  a  twofold 
form :  first,  by  not  shrinking  from  the  personal 
discomfort  resulting  from  the  conservative  reaction 
of  the  social  mass  against  new  ideas ;  second,  by 
taking  care  to  present  their  message  in  a  form  at 
once  luminous,  sympathetic,  and  self-commending. 
Thought  is  to  be  uttered,  not  buried  in  the  breast, 
and  it  is  to  be  uttered,  not  to  show  how  far  the 
thinker  is  in  advance  of  his  time,  but  that  it  may 
1  Mark  iii.  14.  8  Matthew  v.  13,  14. 


CHRIST'S  TEACHING  ON  PROVIDENCE      277 

find  lodgment  in  other  minds.  The  parable  of  the 
leaven  is  another  tribute  to  the  law  of  solidarity. 
The  leaven  is  placed  in  the  mass  of  dough  that  it 
may  leaven  the  whole  lump.  Finally,  the  law  of 
sacrifice  is  conspicuously  recognised  as  a  condition 
of  moral  power.  It  is  he  who  lays  down  his  life 
as  a  ransom  that  becomes  the  great  one.  How 
death  in  the  form  of  self-sacrifice  may  issue  in 
multiplied  life  is  felicitously  illustrated  by  a  saying 
recorded  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  in  which  Jesus  likened 
Himself,  as  about  to  suffer  on  the  cross,  to  a  corn 
of  wheat  falling  into  the  ground  and  through  death 
bringing  forth  much  fruit.  The  analogy  does  not 
explain  how  self-sacrifice  becomes  spiritually  fruit- 
ful, but  it  shows  that  it  may — an  important  service 
when  the  truth  taught  appears  an  incredible  paradox. 
Christ's  doctrine  of  Providence  is  acceptable  in 
every  point  of  view.  It  satisfies  the  demands  alike 
of  heart,  conscience,  and  reason.  It  satisfies  the 
heart  by  offering  to  faith  a  God  whose  nature  is 
paternal,  and  whose  providential  action  has  for  its 
supreme  characteristic  benignancy.  It  satisfies  the 
conscience  by  ignoring  no  dark  facts  in  the  world's 
history ;  by  looking  moral  evil  straight  in  the  face ; 
and  by  recognising  frankly  the  punitive  action  of 
the  moral  order.  It  satisfies  the  reason  by  avoiding 
abstract  antitheses  between  providential  action  and 
natural  law,  by  viewing  that  action  as  immanent 
and  constant  rather  than  transcendent  and  occa- 


278  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

sional — pervading  the  course  of  nature  and  working 
through  it,  rather  than  interrupting  it  by  super- 
natural incursions.  Its  rationality  is  further  revealed 
by  its  unreserved  acceptance  of  growth,  progress,  as 
the  law  of 'the  spiritual,  not  less  than  of  the  natural, 
world.  In  this  respect  modern  evolutionary  philo- 
sophy, far  from  superseding  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
only  tends  to  illustrate  its  wisdom,  and  helps  us  to 
a  better  understanding  of  its  meaning. 


LECTURE    IX 

MODERN   OPTIMISM:  BROWNING 

WE  now  make  a  sudden  great  leap  over  eighteen 
hundred  years — from  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era  to  our  own  time.  My  apology  must  be  that 
our  limits  are  narrow,  and  that,  whatever  is  to  be 
omitted  under  pressure  of  controlling  conditions,  we 
cannot  afford  to  pass  over  in  silence  the  outstanding 
features  of  contemporary  thought  on  our  chosen 
theme.  And,  great  as  is  the  interval  between  the 
Founder  of  the  Christian  religion  and  the  present 
age,  one  is  not  conscious,  in  making  the  transition, 
of  passing  into  an  entirely  different  thought-world. 
On  the  contrary,  we  are  sensible  rather  of  close 
affinity,  as  if  the  leading  thinkers  of  our  time  had 
come  to  their  task  fresh  from  the  study  of  the 
Gospels,  and  had  derived  their  main  inspiration  from 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Therefore,  while,  for  the  full 
comprehension  of  any  system  of  ideas  current  at 
a  particular  period,  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  opinion  on  the  subject  to  which  they 
relate  may  be  necessary,  it  would  seem  as  if  we 
might,  without  serious  loss  of  insight,  proceed  from 

279 


280  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  study  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  on  Divine  Pro- 
vidence to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  kindred 
wisdom  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

In  a  previous  course  of  lectures  I  had  occasion 
to  advert  to  a  prevalent  pessimistic  temper  as  one 
of  the  evil  influences  which  make  faith  in  a  pro- 
vidential order  difficult  for  the  men  of  this  genera- 
tion. I  do  not  regret  that  I  pointedly  directed 
attention  to  the  portentous  phenomenon  called 
modern  pessimism.  But  it  is  comforting  to  reflect 
that  that  type  of  thought,  so  anti- Christian  in 
temper,  is  not  in  undisputed  possession  of  the  field. 
There  is  a  vigorous,  exhilarating  modern  optimism 
as  well  as  a  baleful,  blighting  modern  pessimism. 
It  is  a  river  of  faith  in  God  as  'our  refuge  and 
strength,'  which  makes  glad  the  city  of  God  and 
all  its  citizens.  Of  this  river  of  life,  *  clear  as 
crystal,'  and  making  '  sweet  music  with  the  enamell'd 
stones,'  I  propose  now  to  speak. 

The  optimism  of  the  century  now  approaching 
its  close  is  of  a  much  weightier  and  worthier  type 
than  that  of  the  century  preceding.  The  optimist 
of  the  eighteenth  century  gained  his  victory  over 
evil,  physical  and  moral,  far  too  easily.  He  under- 
estimated greatly  the  strength  of  the  antagonist. 
In  physical  evil,  even  death,  he  saw  good  in  dis- 
guise, and  in  moral  evil — sin,  crime — only  infirmity. 
Of  the  tragic  element  in  human  life  he  had  no 
adequate  conception  ;  as  far  as  possible  he  shut  his 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         281 

eyes  to  it,  and  in  so  far  as  he  was  aware  of  its  exist- 
ence, he  fathomed  neither  its  source  nor  its  rationale. 
The  summum  bonum,  for  him,  consisted  in  happiness 
rather  than  in  goodness,  and  his  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse provided  'for  its  realisation  by  conceiving  of 
God  as  a  Being  with  one  predominant  attribute, 
benevolence,  and  of  the  world  as  a  complicated  ap- 
paratus for  supplying  sentient  creatures  with  pleasant 
sensations.  There  were  no  clouds  in  his  sky,  save 
such  as  relieved  and  beautified  the  blue. 

Widely  different  in  tone  and  tendency  is  the  more 
recent  optimism  as  expounded  by  its  best  repre- 
sentatives. Echoes  of  the  eighteenth  century  type 
can  indeed  be  heard  in  some  nineteenth  century 
utterances.  When,  e.g.,  Theodore  Parker  declares 
that  there  must  be  another  world — a  heaven — for  the 
sparrow  as  for  man,  and  that  all  mankind  must  be 
eternally  saved  as  a  mere  matter  of  justice  from  the 
Creator  to  the  creature,  and  shall  be,  in  spite  of 
the  small  oscillations  of  human  freedom  within  the 
bounds  of  beneficent  omnipotent  predestination,1 
we  have  not  only  deism  revived  but  deism  out- 
deismed,  if  we  take  a  Rousseau  as  its  spokesman. 
Of  Emerson  also,  though  a  wiser,  calmer,  and  more 
discriminating  man,  it  may  be  said  with  a  measure 
of  truth  that  his  optimism  is  *a  plunge  into  the 
pure  blue  and  away  from  facts/2  *  I  own/  he  writes 
in  one  of  his  charming  essays,  *  I  am  gladdened  by 

1  Works,  vol.  xi.  pp.  115-119.         2  Professor  Jones,  Browning,  p.  78. 


282  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

seeing  the  predominance  of  the  saccharine  principle 
throughout  vegetable  nature,  and  not  less  by  be- 
holding in  morals  that  unrestrained  inundation  of 
the  principle  of  good  into  every  chink  and  hole  that 
selfishness  has  left  open,  yea,  into  selfishness  and 
sin  itself;  so  that  no  evil  is  pure,  nor  hell  itself 
without  its  extreme  satisfactions.'1  A  still  more 
recent  American  author,  the  well-known  poet,  Walt 
Whitman,  outdoes  both  his  fellow-countrymen  in 
optimistic  audacity  ;  witness  these  lines  : — 

*  Omnes  !  Omnes  !  let  others  ignore  what  they  may, 
I  make  the  poem  of  evil  also,  I  commemorate  that  part  also. 
I  am  myself  just  as  much  evil  as  good,  and  my  nation  is — 

and  I  say  there  is  in  fact  no  evil 
(Or  if  there  is,  I  say  it  is  just  as  important  to  you,  to  the 

land  or  to  me,  as  anything  else).'2 

Witness  also  the  poem  entitled  '  Chanting  the 
Square  Deific,'  which  turns  the  Trinity  into  a  Quater- 
nity,  and  represents  the  Holy  Spirit  as  including 
all  life  on  earth,  touching,  including  God,  including 
Saviour  and  Satan. 

Such  extravagances  as  these  are  not  to  be  found 
in  any  important  English  expounder  of  optimism, 
least  of  all  in  Browning,  the  greatest  modern  apostle 
of  that  buoyant,  hope-inspiring  creed.  Browning's 
optimism  is  sober  as  well  as  bold,  circumspect  as 
well  as  uncompromising.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
genial  temperament  and  robust  health,  but  the  well- 
considered  faith  of  one  who  has  thought  earnestly 

1  Essaytt  No.  X.  f  Starting  from  Paumanok* 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         283 

and  long,  and  who  understands  and  accepts  the 
philosophic  implications  of  his  creed.  It  is  not  an 
eclectic  system,  but  a  belief  resolutely  maintained 
in  view  of  all  relevant  facts,  and  aiming  at  a  com- 
plete vindication  of  God's  ways.  It  asserts  its 
position  with  earnest  purpose  not  to  compromise 
moral  interests,  with  ample  knowledge  of  the  evil 
that  is  in  man,  and  with  fearlessness  in  looking 
into  its  darkest  depths,  as  revealed,  e.g.  in  the  char- 
acter of  a  Guido.1  When  a  man  of  whose  intel- 
lectual and  moral  attitude  all  this  can  be  said, 
announces  as  his  conviction  that  love  is  the  divinest 
thing  in  the  universe,  and  the  key  to  all  mysteries ; 
that,  though  manifested  in  its  true  nature  only  at  a 
late  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the  world  it  explains 
all  that  went  before ;  that  it  is  the  light  of  the 
present  and  the  hope  of  the  future ;  that  there  are 
seeds  of  goodness  in  even  the  most  depraved  char- 
acters ;  that  by  conflict  with  evil  good  is  reached  ; 
that  not  otherwise  can  it  be  attained  ;  that  evil  is 
here,  not  to  be  tolerated  but  to  be  overcome, 
and  that  it  is  not  invincible ;  that  the  conflict  is 
going  on  more  or  less  strenuously  in  all,  and  that  it 
will  continue  beyond  the  grave  with  good  hope,  if 
not  with  absolute  certainty,  of  universal  ultimate 
victory,  we  are  bound  to  give  him  a  respectful, 
candid  hearing.  It  is  not  blameworthy  to  hold  and 
try  to  establish  such  a  bright  creed.  The  attempt 

1  Vide  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  v. 


284  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

may  fail,  but  it  is  legitimate  and  even  noble.  Success 
in  the  endeavour  would  be  fraught  with  much  moral 
advantage.  It  would  cure  the  paralysis  resulting 
from  doubt  whether  God  be  a  Being  of  infinitely 
good  will,  and  whether  the  victory  of  good  over  evil 
be  possible : — 

'  So  might  we  safely  mock  at  what  unnerves 
Faith  now,  be  spared  the  sapping  fear's  increase 
That  haply  evil's  strife  with  good  shall  cease 
Never  on  earth.'1 

Debatable  questions  apart,  this  creed  of  Brown- 
ing's, in  its  general  spirit  and  tendency,  is  Christian 
and,  I  may  add,  Biblical.  For  an  optimistic  strain 
runs  through  the  whole  sacred  literature  of  the 
Hebrews :  through  Psalms,  Prophets,  Gospels,  and 
Epistles.  *  The  earth  is  full  of  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord';2  'Thou  hast  made  summer  and  winter';3 
'  Make  a  joyful  noise  unto  the  Lord,  all  ye  lands  .  .  . 
for  the  Lord  is  good,  His  mercy  is  everlasting ; 
and  His  truth  endureth  to  all  generations':4  thus 
cheerily  sing  the  lyric  poets  of  Israel.  Messianic 
prophecy,  with  its  Utopian  pictures  of  the  good  time 
coming,  is  the  outcome  and  triumphant  expression 
of  Hebrew  optimism.  Jesus,  with  His  inspiring 
doctrine  of  a  Father-God  who  careth  for  all,  and  His 
invincible  hope  for  the  redemption  of  the  worst  of 
men,  was  emphatically  optimist  Even  Paul,  sombre 

1  Vide  Parleying! :  *  Bernard  de  Mandeville.1 

*  Psalm  xxxiii.  5.  *  Psalm  Ixxiv.  17.  *  Psalm  c. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM  :  BROWNING         285 

though  his  theology  in  some  aspects  seems,  was,  in 
His  general  religious  tone,  in  sympathy  with  the 
Master.  He  believed  that  if  sin  abounded  grace 
abounded  more,  that  all  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God,  and  that  God's  mercy 
is  over  all.  The  most  orthodox  and  devout  ad- 
herents of  the  Christian  faith  may,  therefore,  open 
their  ears  to  the  teaching  of  the  fervent  apostle 
of  modern  optimism,  without  timidity  or  distrust, 
assured  that  they  listen  to  a  friend,  not  to  a  foe. 

Let  us  consider  in  detail  the  salient  features  in 
Browning's  creed. 

Foremost  stands  his  doctrine  of  God.  It  is,  in 
brief,  that  God  is  love  and  love  is  God.  In  Brown- 
ing's view  love  is  the  greatest,  mightiest,  most 
all-pervasive  thing  in  the  world.  Where  it  is, 
even  in  the  smallest  measure,  and  in  the  meanest 
guise,  there  is  something  divine ;  where  it  is  not, 
were  the  lack  even  in  God  Himself,  there  is  no 
divinity.  Man,  nay  even  the  lowliest  worm,  loving 
were  greater  than  God  not  loving. 

*  For  the  loving  worm  within  its  clod 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  God 
Amid  His  worlds,  I  will  dare  to  say.'1 

'  Do  I  find  love  so  full  in  my  nature,  God's  ultimate  gift, 
That  I  doubt  His  own  love  can  compete  with  it  ?      Here 

the  parts  shift  ? 

Here,  the    creature    surpass  the   Creator — the  end,  what 
Began?'2 

1  Christmas  Eve.  a  Saul. 


286  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

But  the  poet  cherishes   no   such   doubt.      God,  in 
his  view,  is  the  fountain  of  all  love. 

*  I  believe  it !    'Tis  thou,  God,  that  givest,  'tis  I  who  receive  : 
In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  Thy  will  is  my  power  to  believe. 
All's  one  gift.'1 

God  is  the  perfect  exemplar  of  love.  Whatever 
man  can  do  in  the  way  of  heroic  love,  God  can  do 
still  more : — 

*  Would  I  suffer  for  him  that   I  love?    So  wouldst  Thou 

— so  wilt  Thou  ! 
So  shall  crown  Thee,  the  topmost,  ineffablest,  uttermost 

crown — 

And  Thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave  up  nor  down 
One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in  !'a 

No  other  attribute  of  God,  however  august,  is  al- 
lowed to  eclipse  his  love.  The  '  All-Great '  is  also 
the  'All-Loving';3  the  Almighty  and  Omniscient 
One  the  infinitely  good  : — 

*  So,  gazing  up,  in  my  youth,  at  love 
•As  seen  through  power,  ever  above 
All  modes  which  make  it  manifest, 
My  soul  brought  all  to  a  single  test ; 
That  He,  the  Eternal  First  and  Last, 
Who,  in  His  power,  had  so  surpassed 
All  man  conceives  of  what  is  might — 
Whose  wisdom,  too,  shewed  infinite — 
Would  prove  as  infinitely  good  ; 
Would  never  (my  soul  understood), 
With  power  to  work  all  love  desires, 
Bestow  e'en  less  than  man  requires.'* 

1  Saul.  z  Ibid. 

9  An  Epistle  containing  the  Strange  Medical  Experience  of  Karshish. 

4  Christmas  Eve. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING        287 

God's  love  is  revealed   in    the  universe   not   less 
clearly   than    His   power   and    His   wisdom.      It  is 
'immanent    in   the    constitution   of  the    world   and 
manifested  through  the  laws  of  nature  : — 

*  I  have  gone  the  whole  round  of  creation :  I  saw  and  I 

spoke ; 
I,  a  work  of  God's  hand   for   that  purpose,  received   in 

my  brain 
And  pronounced  on  the  rest  of  His  handiwork — returned 

Him  again 
His    creation's    approval    or    censure :    I    spoke    as    I 

saw, 
I  report,  as  a  man  may  of  God's  work — all's  love,  yet 

all's  law.'1 

God's  love,  finally,  is  immanent  and  operative  in 
human  life,  in  its  sin  and  sorrow,  transporting,  trans- 
forming aspiring  souls  from  worst  to  best ;  there  ever 
really,  though  not  always  plainly  : — 

'  I  have  faith  such  end  shall  be  : 
From  the  first,  Power  was — I  knew 

Life  has  made  clear  to  me 

That,  strive  but  for  closer  view, 

Love  were  as  plain  to  see.'2 

Browning's  doctrine  of  man  is  in  full  sympathy 
with  his  genial  idea  of  God.  He  accepts  the  view, 
confirmed  by  modern  science,  of  man's  place  in  the 
universe  as  the  crown  of  the  creative  process ;  and 
in  man's  history  he  sees  the  continuation  of  the 

1  Saul.  *  Asolando  \  *  Reverie, 


288  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

evolutionary  movement,  carrying  him  upwards  ever 
nearer  to  the  moral  ideal : 

'  All  tended  to  mankind. 
And,  man  produced,  all  has  its  end  thus  far  : 
But  in  completed  man  begins  anew 
A  tendency  to  God.'1 

The  Godward  tendency  is  admitted  to  be  faint 
enough  in  many  instances,  but  it  is  not  believed  to 
be  in  any  case  altogether  wanting.  Our  poet 
would  subscribe  to  the  sentiment  of  Emerson: 
'That  pure  malignity  can  exist  is  the  extreme  pro- 
position of  unbelief.  It  is  not  to  be  entertained  by 
a  rational  agent ;  it  is  atheism  ;  it  is  the  last  profana- 
tion.'2 To  character  as  well  as  to  lot  he  would 
apply  the  words  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Persian  sage  Ferishtah: 

'  Of  absolute  and  irretrievable 
And  all-subduing  black — black's  soul  of  black, 
Beyond  white's  power  to  disintensify, 
Of  that  I  saw  no  sample.' s 

He  finds  dim  traces  of  good  in  most  unexpected 
quarters,  in  a  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  eg.  the  gipsy  trull 
who  traffics  in  '  just  what  we  most  pique  us  that  we 
keep';  in  her  freedom  from  pretence,  her  kindness 
to  parents,  her  capacity  of  devotion,  common  to  her 
sex,  and  notable  when  compared  to  that  of  men : 
'women  rush  into  you,  and  there  remain  absorbed';4 

1  Paracelsus.  f  Representative  Men  :  '  Swedenborg.' 

9  FerishtaVs  Fancies :  « A  Bean-Stripe.'     4  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  Ixxi. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         289 

*  women  grow  you,   while   men  depend  on  you  at 
best/1     Even  in  her  case  he  believes 

'  That  through  the  outward  sign,  the  inward  grace  allures, 
And   sparks   from  heaven  transpierce   earth's  coarsest 
covertures.'2 

With  reference  to  all  beings,  animate  and  inani- 
mate— grains  of  sand  or  strolling  play-actors — his 
confident  persuasion  is  that 

*  No  creature 's  made  so  mean 
But  that,  some  way,  it  boasts,  could  we  investigate, 
Its  supreme  worth  :  fulfils,  by  ordinance  of  fate, 
Its  momentary  task,  gets  glory  all  its  own, 
Tastes  triumph  in  the  world,  pre-eminent,  alone.'8 

Not  merely  alongside  of  evil,  but  even  in  evil 
itself,  our  poet  can  descry  good,  or  the  promise  and 
potency  of  good ;  in  its  energy,  for  example.  He 
admires  above  all  things  earnest  purpose,  vigorous 
will,  and  demands  these  qualities  of  all  men,  what- 
ever their  aims.  Indifference,  lukewarmness,  half- 
heartedness,  is  for  him  the  unpardonable  sin : 

*  Let  a  man  contend  to  the  uttermost, 
For  his  life's  set  prize,  be  it  what  it  will.'* 

Does  a  man  leap  from  a  tower  to  test  his  faith, 
he  holds  his  act  rational,  though  it  ends  in  death  : 

'  Hold  a  belief,  you  only  half-believe, 
With  all-momentous  issues  either  way, 
And  I  advise  you  imitate  this  leap, 
Put  faith  to  proof,  be  cured  or  killed  at  once." 

It  will  be  evident  that  one  holding  such  views  as 

1  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  Ixxi.  a  Ibid.,  xxvii.  3  Ibid.,  xxix. 

4  7 he  Statue  and  the  Bust.        B  Red  Cotton  Night- Cap  Country,  iv. 

T 


29o  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  the  presence  of  good  even  in  characters  to  all 
appearance  desperately  evil,  can  recognise  no  hard- 
and-fast  line  of  demarcation  between  good  men 
and  bad  men,  saints  and  sinners,  sages  and  fools. 
Character  becomes  fluid,  dividing-lines  melt  away, 
a  little  of  the  saint  is  found  in  every  sinner,  and  not 
a  little  of  the  sinner  in  every  saint.  In  view  of 
accepted  theological  classifications,  this  may  seem  a 
dangerous  doctrine,  but  it  is  little  more  than  was 
said  long  ago  by  so  good  a  Christian  as  Richard 
Baxter.  In  a  comparative  estimate  of  his  religious 
experience  in  youth  and  age,  he  sets  down  this 
shrewd  observation :  *  I  now  see  more  good  and 
more  evil  in  all  men  than  heretofore  I  did.  I  see 
that  good  men  are  not  so  good  as  I  once  thought 
they  were,  and  find  that  few  men  are  so  bad  as 
their  enemies  imagine.'1  Baxter  lived  before  the 
days  of  evolutionary  philosophy,  and  had  only  an 
open  eye  and  a  candid  mind  to  guide  him.  Besides 
these,  Browning  had  the  benefit  of  a  theory  of  de- 
velopment which,  applied  to  the  moral  sphere,  means 
that  at  no  time  can  you  say  of  any  man  that  he 
altogether  is  free,  rational,  good,  or  the  reverse,  but 
only  that  he  is  becoming  such  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent.  The  one  valid  distinction  between  men  is 
one  of  tendency  and  momentum. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  a  benevolent  estimate 
of  human  character  and  conduct  which  discovers  a 

1  Reliquia:  BaxUrianae. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         291 

soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,  will  have  no  difficulty 
in  assigning  value  not  only  to  the  victories  and 
successes,  but  even  to  the  defeats  and  failures  of  the 
good.  Human  life  even  at  the  best  is  full  of  such  ex- 
periences :  of  wishes  that  have  not  ripened  into  pur- 
poses, of  purposes  that  have  remained  half  executed, 
of  ideas  unrealised,  of  aspirations  that  have  not  got 
beyond  impotent  longing.  It  is  the  consciousness  of 
this  that  so  often  clouds  the  evening  sky  with  sad- 
ness. Browning  would  fain  remove  this  shadow  from 
the  mind  of  the  aged.  By  the  mouth  of  a  wise  Rabbi 
he  bids  them  be  of  good  cheer,  and  preaches  to  them 
this  comfortable  doctrine : 

'  Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 
Called  "  work,"  must  sentence  pass, 
Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price ; 
O'er  which,  from  level  stand, 
The  low  world  laid  its  hand, 
Found  straightway  to  its  mind,  could  value  in  a  trice : 

But  all  the  world's  coarse  thumb 

And  finger  failed  to  plumb, 

So  passed  in  making  up  the  main  account : 

All  instincts  immature, 

All  purposes  unsure, 

That  weighed  not  as  his  work,  yet  swelled  the  man's  amount : 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 

Into  a  narrow  act, 

Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped : 

All  I  could  never  be, 

All,  men  ignored  in  me, 

This,  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped.' l 

There  is  a  truth  here,  though  the  teaching  of  Ben 

1  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 


292  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Ezra  certainly  goes  counter  to  the  adage :  '  Hell 
is  paved  with  good  intentions ' ;  and  it  is  question- 
able whether  one  should  be  very  ready  to  accept 
its  consolation,  even  in  old  age,  not  to  speak  of 
youth,  which  assuredly  should  not  be  content  to 
dream,  but  take  heed  that  dreams  pass  into  vows 
and  vows  into  performances. 

Browning's  optimism  reveals  itself  conspicuously  in 
his  mode  of  dealing  with  the  problem  of  evil.  That 
problem,  in  his  view,  lies  chiefly  in  the  phenomena 
of  moral  evil  in  the  lives  of  individual  men.  He 
does  not  altogether  overlook  physical  evil ;  character- 
istic utterances  on  that  topic  also  are  scattered  up 
and  down  his  pages.  FerishtaWs  Fancies,  one  of 
Browning's  later  works,  supplies  good  samples.  In 
one  of  these  *  Fancies '  a  disciple  of  the  sage,  having 
got  his  thumb  nipped  by  a  scorpion  while  culling 
herbs,  asks:  'Why  needs  a  scorpion  be?'  nay, 
'Wherefore  should  any  evil  hap  to  man?'  assuming 
that  'God's  all-mercy  mates  all-potency.'  The 
answer  in  brief  is : 

*  Put  pain  from  out  the  world,  what  room  were  left 
For  thanks  to  God,  for  love  to  Man  ?' 

The  connection  between  pain  and  sympathy  is  illus- 
trated by  supposing  the  case  of  the  Shah  wasting 
with  an  internal  ulcer.  As  Shah,  born  to  empire, 
he  is  nothing  to  his  subjects  ;  his  very  virtues  are 
discounted  as  matters  of  course.  But  speak  of  the 
ulcer,  and  anon  pity  wells  up : 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING        293 

*  Say'st  thou  so  ? 

How  should  I  guess  ?    Alack,  poor  soul !     But  stay — 
Sure  in  the  reach  of  art  some  remedy 
Must  lie  to  hand?' 

To  the  suggestion  that  it  does  not  matter  though 
the  malady  should  end  in  death  in  the  case  of 
one  '  Odious,  in  spite  of  every  attribute  commonly 
deemed  loveworthy,'  the  disciple  exclaims  : 

*  Attributes  ? 

Faugh  ! — nay,  Ferishtah,  'tis  an  ulcer,  think? 
Attributes  quotha  ?     Here 's  poor  flesh  and  blood, 
Like  thine  and  mine  and  every  man's,  a  prey 
To  hell-fire  !     Hast  thou  lost  thy  wits  for  once  ?Jl 

In  another  *  Fancy '  the  question  is  propounded : 

'A  good  thing  or  a  bad  thing — Life  is  which?' 
The  answer  is  given  in  a  parable  of  beans  repre- 
senting the  days  of  man's  life,  the  question  being 
which  colour  in  a  handful  predominates — black  or 
white.  The  disciple  agrees  with  Buddha  in  thinking 
that  black  is  the  reigning  colour.  The  master  finds 
that  no  beans  or  days  are  absolutely  black,  and  that 
the  blackish  and  whitish  qualify  each  other,  yielding 
a  prevailing  grey.  Joys  are  bettered  by  sorrow  gone 
before,  and  '  sobered  by  the  shadowy  sense  of  sorrow 
which  came  after  or  might  come.'  Such  has  been 
his  own  experience ;  others,  he  knew,  may  not  fare 
so  well.  What  then  ?  Why : 

*  God's  care  be  God's  !    'Tis  mine — to  boast  no  joy 
Unsobered  by  such  sorrows  of  my  kind 
As  sully  with  their  shade  my  life  that  shines.' 2 

1  Mihrab  Shah.  2  A  Bean- Stripe. 


294  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

This  is  not  ambitious  philosophy. 

A  different  judgment  may  be  supposed  to  be 
called  for  on  the  poet's  solution  of  the  problem  of 
moral  evil. 

Browning's  theory  may  be  summed  up  in  these 
six  propositions : — 

1.  Morality,  the  realisation  of  the  moral  ideal,  is 
the  highest  good. 

2.  Process,  progress  by  conflict,   is   necessary  to 
morality. 

3.  Evil  is  the  foe  with  which  man  has  to  fight. 

4.  Evil  is  needed  to  make  a  struggle  possible. 

5.  Ignorance  of  the  true  nature  of  evil  is  necessary 
to  give  strenuousness  and  even  reality  to  the  struggle. 

6.  The  struggle  will  have  a  happy  issue  in  all. 
That  the  first  of  these  theses  has  a  place  in  the 

poet's  scheme  of  thought  needs  no  proof.  The  con- 
viction that  righteousness,  goodness,  is  the  summum 
bonum  for  God  and  for  men,  and  that  all  else  in 
human  life  is  to  be  valued  by  its  bearing  thereon, 
is  the  underlying  assumption  of  all  he  has  written. 
The  Moral  development  of  the  soul  is,  in  his  view, 
the  one  thing  in  human  life  of  supreme  interest : 
'  little  else  is  worth  study.'  So  he  thought  at  an 
early  period  when  he  wrote  Sordello ;  *  so  he  con- 
tinued to  think  nearly  fifty  years  later  when  he 
published  his  Parleying*  with  certain  People?  To 

1  Bearing  date  1840 :  vide  prefatory  letter  to  the  poem. 
*  Bearing  date 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         295 

evolutionists  who  look  from  above  downwards  seek- 
ing to  explain  man  by  the  fiery  cloud,  he  says  by 
the  mouth  of  Francis  Furini : 

'  Have  you  done 

Descending  ?    Here 's  ourself— man,  known  to-day, 
Duly  evolved  at  last ;  so  far,  you  say, 
The  sum  and  seal  of  being's  progress.     Good  ! 
Thus  much  at  least  is  clearly  understood — 
Of  power  does  Man  possess  no  particle  ! 
Of  knowledge — just  so  much  as  shows  that  still 
It  ends  in  ignorance  on  every  side  : 
But  righteousness — ah,  man  is  deified 
Thereby,  for  compensation.'1 

Righteousness  is  man's  prerogative  : 

*  Where  began 
Righteousness,  moral  sense,  except  in  man?'3 

and  the  crown  of  creation  is  due  to  him  on  that 
account : 

,  *  Rather  let  it  seek  thy  brows, 

Man,  whom  alone  a  righteousness  endows 
Would  cure  the  world's  ailing  I    Who  disputes 
Thy  claim  thereto  ?  '3 

But  the  crown  is  not  one  of  moral  perfection,  but 
only  of  indefinite  moral  capability. 

The  moral  ideal  is  a  far-off  goal,  to  be  reached 
only  by  arduous  effort.  This  is  a  very  fundamental 
item  in  Browning's  creed,  affirmed  and  re-affirmed 
with  unwearying  iteration.  Perfect  goodness,  he 
holds,  is  not  attained  per  saltum ;  cannot  be,  would 

1  Francis  Furini,  ix.  2  Ibid.,  ix.  s  Ibid.,  ix. 


296  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

not  be  worth  having  even  if  it  could.     Progress  is 
'man's  distinctive  mark': 

'  Not  God's  and  not  the  beasts' :  God  is,  they  are, 
Man  partly  is  and  wholly  hopes  to  be.'1 

He  should  not  be  sorry  that  the  fact  is  so.     He 
should  rather 

*  Welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go  ! 
Be  our  joy  three-parts  pain  ! 
Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain  ; 

Learn,  nor  account  the  pang ;  dare,  never  grudge  the 
throe!"8 

The  smooth  life  of  effortless  virtue  and  un- 
chequered  joy — no  want,  no  growth,  no  change,  no 
hope,  no  fear,  no  better  and  no  worse  —  were  an 
utter  weariness  from  which  one  would  be  glad  to 
escape  into  a  world  where  all  these  things  were 
familiar  facts  of  experience.  The  inhabitant  of 
the  star  Rephan,  the  imagined  scene  of  the  smooth 
life,  grows  tired  of  its  monotonous  felicity,  yearns 
for  a  'difference  in  thing  and  thing'  that  might 
shock  his  sense  '  with  a  want  of  worth  in  them  all,' 
and  so  startle  him  up  'by  an  Infinite  discovered 
above  and  below.'  He  would 

c  Strive,  not  rest, 

Burn  and  not  smoulder,  win  by  worth, 
Not  rest  content  with  a  wealth  that's  dearth.'3 

He  is  past  Rephan  ;  his  proper  place  is  Earth. 

1  A  Death  in  the  Desert.     2  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,     *  Asolando :  '  Rephan.' 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         297 

Earth  is  the  scene  of  struggle,  and  it  is  the  struggle 
with  evil  that  gives  zest,  value,  tragic  significance,  to 

life: 

*  When  the  fight  begins  within  himself, 
A  man's  worth  something.     God  stoops  o'er  his  head, 
Satan  looks  up  between  his  feet— both  tug- 
He's  left,  himself,  i'  the  middle  :  the  soul  wakes 
And  grows.     Prolong  that  battle  through  his  life  ! 
Never  leave  growing  till  the  life  to  come  ! '  l 

But  does  this  not  amount  to  saying  that  evil  is  in 
its  own  way  good,  or  at  least  that  it  is  a  necessary 
means  to  good  as  its  end,  as  supplying  the  stimulus 
to  a  heroic  struggle  without  which  life  would  lack 
moral  interest?  It  does,  and  Browning  does  not 
shrink  from  this  daring  conception.  He  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  the  bishop  who  gives  such  a  graphic 
description  of  man's  fight,  with  God  and  Satan  for 
spectators,  the  bold  expression:  'the  blessed  evil/ 
Evil  is  deemed  blessed  for  various  reasons.  One  is, 
because  it  helps  to  hide  God : 

*  Some  think,  Creation  's  meant  to  show  Him  forth  : 
I  say  it's  meant  to  hide  Him  all  it  can, 

And  that's  what  all  the  blessed  evil's  for. 

Its  use  in  Time  is  to  environ  us, 

Our  breath,  our  drop  of  dew,  with  shield  enough 

Against  that  sight  till  we  can  bear  its  stress.' a 

Another  reason  is  because  without  power  and  temp- 
tation to  do  evil  goodness  would  lose  its  value : 

*  Liberty  of  doing  evil  gave  his  doing  good  a  grace.'* 

Yet  another  reason  is  that  for  our  poet  the  struggle 

1  Bishop  Bloug)'an?s  Apology.  a  Ibid.  *  La  Saisiaz, 


298  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

with  evil  is  an  end  in  itself,  more  important  than  the 

victory. 

'  Aspire,  break  bounds  1  I  say, 
Endeavour  to  be  good,  and  better  still, 
And  best  1  Success  is  nought,  endeavour's  all.*1 

One  who  so  worships  '  endeavour '  cannot  be  content 
with  the  bare  liberty  to  do  evil.  There  must  be 
actual  moral  aberration  to  give  zest  to  the  struggle 
— to  make  it  sublime,  nay,  even  to  make  it  real : 

*  Type  needs  antitype  : 

As  night  needs  day,  as  shine  needs  shade,  so  good 
Needs  evil.' 

This  doctrine  seems  to  come  perilously  near  to 
confounding  moral  distinctions  and  making  evil 
good  in  disguise,  with  equal  rights  to  existence  in 
the  universe,  as  Spinoza  contended.  But  Browning 
is  no  Spinozist,  though  he  fails,  as  has  been  pointed 
out,8  to  grasp  clearly  the  distinction  between  pan- 
theistic optimism  and  that  of  which  he  himself  is  the 
champion.  He  regards  evil  not  as  a  thing  to  be  con- 
templated with  philosophic  complacency,  but  rather 
as  a  foe  to  be  resolutely  fought  with  ;  and  that  makes 
all  the  difference.  And  yet  he  is  in  the  position 
of  a  man  divided  against  himself.  His  robust 
moral  sense  constrains  him  to  view  moral  evil  as  a 
great  tremendous  reality  which  might  conceivably 
assert  its  power  in  the  universe  victoriously  and 
permanently.  On  the  other  hand,  his  assured 
conviction  that,  under  the  reign  of  a  God  of  love, 

1  Red  Cotton  Night- Cap  Country.      2  Parleying*:  'Francis  Furini.' 
*  Vide  Professor  Jones,  Browning  as  a  Philosophical  and  Religious 
Teacher^  p.  309. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING         299 

this  cannot  be,  tempts  him  to  think  of  sin  as  part 
of  the  divine  plan :  no  detail,  not  even  the  vice  of 
a  Fifine,  but,  in  place  allotted  to  it,  'prime  and 
perfect.'  How,  then,  does  he  get  out  of  the  dilemma  ? 
He  takes  refuge  in  ignorance,  and  asserts  that  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  know  whether  sin  be  a  grim 
reality,  or  only  a  shadowy  appearance.  And  he 
thinks  that  this  ignorance  is  beneficent,  that  with- 
out it  one  could  not  be  in  earnest  in  the  struggle 
against  evil,  that  certainty  either  way  would  paralyse 
moral  energy,  or  even  make  moral  action  impossible. 
This  curious  doctrine  of  ignorance  and  the  use  it 
serves  occupies  a  prominent  place  in  Browning's 
later  poems,  and  the  seeds  of  it  are  to  be  found 
even  in  the  earlier.  The  need  for  ignorance  as  a 
spur  to  action  is  broadly  asserted  in  these  lines : 

*  Though  wrong  were  right 

Could  we  but  know— still  wrong  must  needs  seem  wrong 
To  do  right's  service,  prove  men  weak  or  strong, 
Choosers  of  evil  or  of  good.' l 

That  uncertainty  is  necessary  to  give  action  moral 
quality  is  not  less  explicitly  affirmed  in  this  passage : 

*  Once  lay  down  the  law,  with  nature's  simple  :  "  Such  effects 

succeed 
Causes  such,  and  heaven  or  hell  depends  upon  man's  earthly 

deed 

Just  as  surely  as  depends  the  straight  or  else  the  crooked  line 
On  his  making  point  meet  point  or  with  or  else  without 

incline  " — 
Thenceforth  neither  good  nor  evil  does  man,  doing  what  he 

must.'2 

1  Parkyings:  *  Francis  Furini.'  2  La  Saisiaz. 


300  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

This  doctrine  is  plausible  but  sophistical ;  one 
wonders  how  so  robust  and  healthy  a  mind  as 
Browning's  could  have  anything  to  do  with  it. 
Certainty  as  to  the  deep  radical  distinction  between 
good  and  evil  is  not  paralysing  to  the  moral 
energies;  it  is  uncertainty  that  paralyses.  Firm, 
unfaltering  conviction  as  to  the  reality  of  moral 
distinctions  is  the  foundation  on  which  strong 
character  is  built,  the  most  powerful  aid  to 
moral  achievement,  and  one  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous characteristics  of  all  who  have  fought 
well  the  good  fight.  No  man  ever  made  a  great 
figure  in  the  moral  world  whose  state  of  mind 
was  that  of  Francis  Furini — deeming  it  possible 
that  wrong  might  be  right,  but  adopting  as  a 
working  hypothesis  that  wrong  is  wrong  in  order 
to  a  decided  choice  between  good  and  evil.  Decided 
choices  cannot  rest  on  make-believe.  Decision  in 
will  demands  decision  in  thought.  Then,  as  for 
the  supposed  compulsory  and  therefore  non-moral 
character  of  action  arising  out  of  belief  in  the 
certainty  of  the  law  connecting  lot  with  conduct, 
it  is  a  fallacious  notion  due  to  not  distinguishing 
between  physical  and  moral  necessity.  Man  is 
under  no  brute-compulsion  to  do  right  because  he 
is  morally  certain  that  wrong-doing  will  bring 
penalties.  He  may  be  ever  so  sure  that  his  sin 
will  find  him  out  and  yet  commit  sin ;  ever  so 
sure  that  it  shall  be  well  with  the  righteous  and 


MODERN  OPTIMISM  :  BROWNING        301 

yet  take  his  place  among  the  unrighteous.  Faith 
in  a  moral  order  which  acts  with  the  certainty  of 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  a  motive  to  well-doing 
which  may  be  powerful,  but  is  never  irresistible. 
Its  power  is  greatest  over  those  who  freely  follow 
the  dictates  of  reason,  least  over  those  who  are 
the  slaves  of  evil  desire  and  habit.  The  citizens 
of  the  Kingdom  of  heaven  have  no  doubt  that 
those  who  hunger  after  righteousness  shall  be  filled. 
Does  that  conviction  annihilate  their  righteousness? 
On  the  whole,  this  doctrine  of  uncertainty  has  no 
proper  place  in  a  truly  optimistic  theory.  Its 
metaphysical  presupposition  is  an  agnostic  theory 
of  knowledge ;  it  introduces  a  dualism  between 
thought  and  conduct  which  cannot  fail  to  be  a 
source  of  moral  weakness ;  it  suggests  a  view  of 
the  illusoriness  of  life  whose  true  affinities  are  with 
pessimism. 

The  last  article  in  Browning's  theory  for  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  is  that  the  struggle 
will  in  all  cases  have  a  happy  issue.  There  will 
be  no  final  irretrievable  failure,  not  even  in  the 
case  of  those  who  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
struggled,  because  they  have  been  through  life 
the  abject  slaves  of  evil  passion.  There  will  be  no 
failure  even  in  the  case  of  a  Guido  the  reprobate, 
though  in  his  case  salvation  should  mean  un- 
making in  order  to  remake  his  soul — a  soul  in 
which  there  is  nothing  good  save  the  raw  material 


302  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  the  Creator.  The 
trust  in  such  a  case  cannot,  of  course,  be  in  the 
will  of  man,  but  solely  in  the  unchangeable  gracious 
purpose  of  God,  which  is  assumed  to  have  for  its 
aim  the  realisation  in  all  human  souls  of  all  moral 
possibilities.  That  being  the  aim,  failure  to  realise 
it  in  any  instance  would  mean  a  soul  made  in  vain, 
the  divine  purpose  frustrated  by  its  perdition, 
which,  though  the  soul  be  that  of  a  Guido,  '  must 
not  be.'1 

The  scene  of  the  unmaking  and  remaking  is  the 
world  beyond  the  grave.  There,  in  general,  the 
problem  of  evil  finds  its  adequate  solution,  accord- 
ing to  the  firm  conviction  of  our  poet,  who  in  this 
belief  is  true  to  the  spirit  of  optimism.  Not  that 
all  optimists  believe  in  the  future  life.  Some  find 
it  unnecessary  to  go  outside  the  present  life  for 
support  and  vindication  of  their  sunny  creed. 
Emerson  writes :  '  Men  ask  concerning  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  the  employments  of  heaven, 
the  state  of  the  sinner,  and  so  forth.  They  even 
dream  that  Jesus  has  left  replies  to  precisely  those 
interrogatories.  Never  a  moment  did  that  sublime 
spirit  speak  in  their  patois.  ...  It  was  left  to  His 
disciples  to  sever  duration  from  the  moral  elements, 
and  to  teach  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  a 
doctrine,  and  maintain  it  by  evidences.  The 
moment  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  separately 

1  Tht  Ring  and  the  Book  :  '  The  Pope,'  2132. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM  :  BROWNING        303 

taught  man  is  already  fallen.  In  the  flowing  of 
love,  in  the  adoration  of  humility,  there  is  no 
question  of  continuance.  No  inspired  man  ever 
asks  this  question,  or  condescends  to  those  evi- 
dences. For  the  soul  is  true  to  itself,  and  the 
man  in  whom  it  is  shed  abroad  cannot  wander 
from  the  present,  which  is  infinite,  to  a  future 
which  would  be  finite.'1  Far  otherwise  thinks 
Browning,  who  sees  in  this  life  without  a  life 
beyond  only  a  hopeless  muddle. 

'  There  is  no  reconciling  wisdom  with  a  world  distraught, 
Goodness  with  triumphant  evil,  power  with  failure  in  the  aim, 
If  you  bar  me  from  assuming  earth  to  be  a  pupil's  place, 
And  life,  time — with  all  their  chances,  changes — just  proba- 
tion-space.' 2 

In  the  light  of  a  life  to  come  all  the  ills  of  this 
life  seem  easily  bearable  : 

*  Only  grant  a  second  life,  I  acquiesce 
In  this  present   life  as  failure,   count   misfortune's   worst 

assaults 
Triumph,  not  defeat,  assured  that  loss  so  much  the  more 

exalts 
Gain  about  to  be.'3 

'Grant  me  (once  again)  assurance  we  shall  each  meet  each 

some  day, 
Walk — but  with  how  bold  a  footstep  1  on  a  way — but  what  a 

way  ! 
— Worst  were  best,  defeat  were  triumph,  utter  loss  were 

utmost  gain.'4 


1  Emerson  :  Essays :  *  The  Oversoul.' 

2  La  Saisiaz.  3  Ibid. 


304  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

These  two  great  teachers  of  our  century  represent 
two  different  types  of  optimism.  That  of  Emerson 
is  so  serene  that  the  present  satisfies,  and  leaves 
little  room  for  wistful  questionings  regarding  an 
unknown  future.  That  of  Browning  is  so  pain- 
fully conscious  of  the  abounding  sin  and  sorrow 
of  the  present  world  as  to  be  ready  to  exclaim 
with  St.  Paul,  *  If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope, 
we  are  of  all  men  most  miserable/  Mood  and 
theory  in  either  case  correspond,  and  both  in  mood 
and  in  theory  the  two  representative  men  will  always 
have  their  followers.  Philosophers  of  tranquil  didactic 
temper  will  teach  that  a  solution  of  life's  problem 
must  be  found  here  or  nowhere,  and  that  it  can 
be  found  here ;  theologians  brought  more  or  less 
closely  face  to  face  with  the  dark  side  of  life  will 
tell  you  that  without  faith  in  immortality  the 
moral  conception  of  the  universe  is  untenable.  A 
momentous  issue  is  thus  raised,  and  those  who 
worthily  take  part  in  the  debate  will  not  lack 
eager  listeners.  The  minds  of  many  are  in  a  state 
of  suspense.  They  know  not  what  to  think  as  to 
the  life  hereafter,  either  as  to  its  reality  or  as  to 
its  nature.  Old  arguments  for  its  reality  have 
ceased  to  tell,  and  old  conceptions  as  to  its  nature 
have  ceased  to  interest.  Nothing  will  win  attention 
or  produce  faith  but  fresh,  free,  fearless,  while 
reverent,  discussion ;  and  those  who  bring  con- 
tributions of  this  character  should  be  welcomed 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING        305 

even  when  their  reasonings  conduct  to  conclusions 
we  would  rather  not  adopt.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign 
of  the  times  that  such  contributions  are  not  want- 
ing. I  gladly  recognise  one  in  a  work  recently 
published,  Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy ',  by 
Dr.  George  Gordon  of  Boston.1 

This  book  has  something  to  say  deserving  a 
respectful  hearing  both  as  to  the  reality  and  as  -to 
the  nature  of  the  life  to  come.  Dr.  Gordon  recog- 
nises three  postulates  of  immortality,  three  positions 
on  which  faith  in  a  hereafter  depends,  and  from 
which  it  surely  follows.  These  are:  'The  moral 
perfection  of  the  Creator,  the  reasonableness  of  the 
universe,  and  the  worth  of  human  life.'2  On  the 
first  he  remarks  that  'the  belief  in  the  moral  per- 
fection of  God  is  an  assumption  for  which  there  is 
proof,  but  by  no  means  complete  proof.  Its  deepest 
justification  is  that  it  is  the  assumption  without 
which  human  life  cannot  be  understood ;  without 
which  the  ideals  and  the  higher  endeavours,  the  best 
character  and  hope  of  man,  are  unaccountable  and 
insane.'3  With  reference  to  the  second  postulate, 
he  observes  that  *  death  as  a  finality  is  the  demon- 
stration of  the  delusion  of  belief  in  the  universe  as 
intelligible.  For  it  is  man's  universe  that  in  the 

1  This  work  reproduces  in  printed  form  a  lecture  delivered  by  the 
author  as  first  Ingersoll   Lecturer  on  *  The  Immortality  of  Man '  in 
Harvard  University.     It  has  been  published  in  this  country  by  James 
Clarke  and  Co.,  London. 

2  Page  46.  3  Page  53. 

U 


306  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

first  place  is  supposed  to  be  intelligible,  not  the 
absolute  universe,  whatever  that  may  mean.  And 
a  universe  that  defeats  his  best  life,  that  contradicts 
his  deepest  thought,  cannot  be  considered  by  man 
at  least  as  the  expression  of  Supreme  Reason.'1 
The  third  postulate,  the  worth  of  human  life,  is 
held  to  be  a  corollary  from  the  Christian  idea  of 
God  as  a  Father.  'The  worth  of  human  life  to 
such  a  God  is  beyond  dispute.  It  must  be  of 
permanent  value,  not  only  in  those  solitary  in- 
stances when  it  becomes  the  flowering  of  moral 
beauty  and  disinterested  service,  but  also  in  our 
total  humanity  so  long  as  the  bare  possibility  of 
noble  character  continues.'2 

According  to  the  author  of  whose  views  I  now 
give  an  account,  the  foregoing  postulates  compel 
faith  not  only  in  immortality  but,  and  in  order  to 
that  faith,  revision  of  current  opinions  as  to  the 
nature  and  conditions  of  the  immortal  life.  Illogical 
limitations  of  divine  interest  in  mankind  must,  above 
all,  be  discarded.  Of  these  Dr.  Gordon  specifies 
three :  the  Hebrew  idea  of  the  remnant,  the  Augus- 
tinian  doctrine  of  election,  and  restriction  of  the 
opportunity  of  salvation  to  this  life :  character  for 
eternity  fixed  in  time.  Setting  aside  all  three,  he 
holds  that  God's  interest  covers  the  whole  of 
humanity,  including  prehistoric  man,  and  that  the 
future  life  will  be  no  Rephan-Y\Vz  stagnation  in  a 

1  Page  57.  *  Page  58. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING        307 

character  that  has  assumed  final  form,  but  a  life 
subject  to  the  law  of  evolution  assumed  to  hold 
sway  there  not  less  than  here.  In  maintaining  these 
positions,  he  does  not  regard  himself  as  an  advocate 
of  universalism,  which  has  to  do  with  matters  of  fact, 
and  contends  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  men  will 
be  finally  saved.  What  he  is  concerned  with  is 
God's  relation  to  mankind,  His  disposition  towards 
the  human  race,  the  scope  of  His  moral  purpose.1 

The  thesis  of  the  theologian,  broadly  stated,  is 
identical  with  that  of  our  optimistic  poet :  A  life 
to  come,  a  life  under  conditions  favourable  to  the 
culture  of  goodness,  a  life  open  to  all,  a  life  not  of 
stagnation  but  of  perpetual  progress  : 

*  Greet  the  unseen  with  a  cheer  1 
Bid  him  forward,  breast  and  back  as  either  should  be, 
"  Strive  and  thrive  ! "    Cry  "  Speed — fight  on,  fare  ever  there 
as  here." ' 2 

What  is  to  be  said  of  it?  That,  regarded  from  the 
point  of  view  of  natural  theology,  and  in  connection 
with  the  general  principles  involved  in  the  provi- 
dential order  as  set  forth  in  a  former  course  of 
lectures,  it  possesses  a  considerable  measure  of  pro- 
bability. If  man  be,  as  has  been  steadfastly  main- 
tained, a  chief  end  for  God,  a  life  after  death  is 
highly  probable.  There  is  no  apparent  reason  a 
priori  why  the  divine  interest  in  man  should  be 
restricted  either  in  the  number  of  its  objects  or  in 

1  Page  67.  2  Browning,  Asolando:  'Reverie.' 


3o8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  aims  it  cherishes  for  their  benefit.  The  pre- 
sumption is  that  the  beneficent  Father  in  heaven 
seeks  the  good  of  all  His  children,  in  all  possible 
ways  and  in  all  worlds ;  that  He  '  willeth  that  all 
men  should  be  saved,'  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word,  here  and  hereafter.  Election,  historically 
interpreted,  is  not  incompatible  with  this  view.  As 
one  of  the  methods  by  which  Providence  seeks  to 
accomplish  its  beneficent  purposes  it  does  not  imply 
partial  interest  or  exclusive  regard.  It  simply  means 
the  use  of  one — man  or  people — to  bless  the  many. 
So  far  is  it  from  involving  a  monopoly  of  favour  for 
the  elect  that  in  the  light  of  history  we  might  rather 
be  tempted  to  think  that  the  lot  of  chosen  vessels 
was  to  convey  a  cup  of  blessing  to  others,  then  to  be 
dashed  in  pieces.  In  no  case  is  benefit  confined  to 
them.1  If  this  be  the  fact  in  the  providential  order, 
why  should  it  be  otherwise  in  the  spiritual  order, 
either  in  the  divine  intention  or  in  actual  result  ?  It 
is  true,  indeed,  that  in  the  spiritual  sphere  we  have 
become  so  accustomed  to  associate  election  with 
exclusive  benefit  to  favoured  individuals  that  it  is 
difficult  to  dissociate  the  two  ideas.  Yet  even  here 
changes  have  taken  place  in  the  significance  of 
phrases  which  ought  to  help  us  over  the  difficulty. 
The  phrase  'elect  infants  dying  in  infancy'2  does 
not  now  mean,  whatever  it  may  have  meant  origi- 

1  Vide  The  Providential  Order  of  the  World,  Lecture  X. 
•  Westminster  Confession,  chapter  X.  §  3. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING        309 

nally,  that  some  of  the  class  denoted  are  chosen  to 
salvation  and  others  doomed  to  perdition.  The 
term  '  elect  *  is  now  taken  as  applying  to  the  whole 
class.  This  extension  of  reference  has  been  brought 
about,  not  by  the  exegesis  of  relative  texts,  but  by 
the  imperious  logic  of  human  feeling  pronouncing 
infant  damnation  an  intolerable  thought.  That  logic 
is  a  formidable  force  to  encounter,  which  may  be 
expected  to  assert  its  power  on  a  larger  scale  in  con- 
nection with  the  whole  subject  of  eschatology,  and 
it  will  be  well  if  the  theology  of  the  future  shall  be 
able  to  avoid  a  collision  which  may  give  rise  to  a 
disastrous  eclipse  of  faith.  Some  say  that  this  can 
be  done  simply  by  giving  due  heed  to  Bible  texts 
which  have  been  *  severely  let  alone  as  leading  the 
mind  in  unorthodox  directions/  and  which,  when 
taken  in  earnest,  will  'create  a  literature  more 
abundant  and  infinitely  nobler  than  that  which 
other  sentences,  isolated  from  them,  and  thus  made 
to  conflict  with  them,  have  generated.'1  It  does 
not  suit  my  temper  to  speak  oracularly.  I  am  con- 
tent to  occupy  the  humble  position  of  one  who  feels 
keenly  the  pressure  of  the  question. 

In  the  same  spirit  would  I  contemplate  the  other 
issue  raised  by  recent  discussions,  viz.,  the  extension 
of  the  principle  of  evolution  into  the  future  world. 
One  who  believes  in  evolution  as  a  law  of  the  uni- 
verse in  all  stages  of  its  history  is  bound  to  admit 

1  Gordon,  Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy,  pp.  94-95. 


310  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

that  the  presumption  is  in  favour  of  its  operation 
continuing  in  the  state  after  death.  As  Bishop 
Butler  said  :  '  There  is  in  every  case  a  probability  that 
all  things  will  continue  as  we  experience  they  are,  in 
all  respects,  except  those  in  which  we  have  some 
reason  to  think  they  will  be  altered.'1  He  applied 
the  principle  to  the  continuance  of  life  after  death, 
holding  that  there  was  no  reason  to  regard  death  as 
a  change  sufficiently  great  to  involve  destruction  of 
the  living  powers.  But  may  we  not  apply  the  prin- 
ciple to  the  quality  of  the  future  life,  and  say,  a 
fortiori^  that  there  is  no  reason  to  regard  death,  great 
change  though  it  be,  as  involving  the  abrogation  of 
the  great  universal  law  of  development  according  to 
which  things  become  what  it  is  in  them  to  be,  not 
per  saltum,  but  by  a  slow,  insensible  process  !  Sup- 
pose that  law  obtains  there  as  here,  what  will  it 
mean  ?  Judging  from  analogy  of  what  goes  on 
here,  this :  those  who  pass  out  of  this  world  with 
some  appreciable  measure  of  goodness  growing 
slowly  better,  moving  steadily  onwards  towards,  if 
never  reaching,  the  moral  ideal ;  those  who  die  with 
only  the  barest  rudiments  of  good  in  them  finding 
opportunity  for  quickening  those  dormant  seeds  into 
life  ;  and — for  this  also,  I  fear,  must  be  contemplated 
as  a  possibility — those  who  in  this  life  have  gone 
on  from  bad  to  worse,  evolving  character  in  a  down- 
ward direction,  undergoing  ever-deepening  degene- 

1  Analogy,  chapter  i. 


MODERN  OPTIMISM:  BROWNING        311 

racy.  That  this  bad  possibility  might  be  kept  from 
becoming  a  realised  fact  by  the  action  of  divine  love 
incessantly  at  work  with  redemptive  intent  is  con- 
ceivable ;  but  there  it  is,  in  the  mysterious  Beyond, 
an  unwelcome  alternative  to  be  reckoned  with  by 
those  who  would  cherish  the  larger  hope.  We  may 
not  lightly  dispose  of  it  by  exaggerated  notions  of 
irresistible  grace,  which  in  effect  cancel  human 
freedom  and  responsibility,  and  degrade  divine  love 
into  a  physical  force.  Rather  let  the  shadow  remain, 
dark  and  awful  though  it  be.  Dark  and  awful  it 
surely  is.  Degeneracy,  or  say  even  arrested  growth, 
what  a  fate  !  It  is  Hell  enough  : 

*  However  near  I  stand  in  His  regard, 
So  much  the  nearer  had  I  stood  by  steps 
Offered  the  feet  which  rashly  spurned  their  help. 
That  I  call  Hell ;  why  further  punishment  ? ' 1 

1  FerishtaVs  Fancies :  *  A  Camel-Driver.' 


LECTURE    X 

MODERN   DUALISM  :    SCIENTIFIC  AND 
PHILOSOPHIC  ASPECTS 

MODERN  DUALISM,  under  all  its  phases,  is  a  totally 
different  phenomenon  from  the  Pessimism  which  we 
had  occasion  to  consider  in  connection  with  our  first 
course  of  Lectures.  The  pessimist  sees  in  the  uni- 
verse nothing  but  evil.  God  is  evil,  man  is  evil,  the 
world  is  evil,  and  there  is  no  hope  of  improvement. 
The  best  thing  were  that  whatever  exists  ceased  to 
be,  and  that  nothing  remained  but  an  infinite  eternal 
void.  Dualism,  on  the  other  hand,  believes  in  good, 
above  all  in  a  good  God.  The  very  rationale  of 
theistic  dualism  is  zeal  for  the  goodness  of  God,  the 
wish  to  relieve  the  Divine  Being  of  responsibility 
for  whatever  evil  may  be  in  the  world.  Various 
expedients  may  be  resorted  to  for  that  end  ;  but 
their  common  aim  is  to  guard  the  moral  purity  of 
Deity  against  stain,  and  to  maintain  intact  the  creed 
that '  God  is  light  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all.' 
This  is  an  attitude  which  all  can  honour,  even  when 
not  convinced  that  the  need  for  guarding  the  divine 
character  is  as  great  as  the  dualist  supposes.  Nor 
HI 


MODERN  DUALISM  313 

can  the  opinion  of  those  who  think  the  need  is 
urgent  be  treated  lightly,  when  it  is  remembered 
that  it  has  been  entertained  by  some  of  the  greatest 
religious  and  philosophic  thinkers  of  the  past,  such 
as  Zoroaster  in  Persia,  and  Plato  among  the  Greeks. 
The  Zoroastrian  method  of  guarding  the  divine 
purity  was  to  invent  an  antigod,  an  evil  spirit  sup- 
posed to  be  the  ultimate  author  of  all  the  evil  in  the 
world,  the  good  being  credited  to  the  benign  spirit, 
Ahuramazda.  Plato's  method  was  different.  He 
conceived  of  matter  as  existing  independently  of 
God,  a  datum  for  the  divine  Architect  of  the  cosmos, 
unalterable  in  its  essential  character,  and  presenting 
a  certain  intractableness  to  divine  Power,  so  that, 
with  the  best  intentions,  God  could  not  make  the 
world  absolutely  good.1  By  comparison  with  this 
Greek  idea  the  device  of  Zoroaster  may  appear 
crude,  but  even  it  commands  our  respect  in  virtue 
of  its  aim.  And  when,  amid  such  diversity  in  the 
nature  of  the  solutions,  we  find  the  great  thinkers  of 
both  peoples  agreed  in  the  feeling  that  there  was  a 
problem  to  be  solved,  we  must  pause  before  waiving 
the  question  aside  as  not  worthy  of  consideration. 

1  So  in  the  Timceus^  where  we  find  such  thoughts  as  these :  *  God 
desired  that  all  things  should  be  good  and  nothing  bad,  in  so  far  as 
this  could  be  accomplished.'  '  The  creation  is  mixed,  being  made  up 
of  necessity  and  mind.  Mind,  the  ruling  power,  persuaded  necessity 
to  bring  the  greater  part  of  created  things  to  perfection,  and  thus  in  the 
beginning,  when  the  influence  of  reason  got  the  better  of  necessity,  the 
universe  was  created.' — Jowett's  Plato,  vol.  iii.  pp.  613,  630.  For 
another  view,  from  The  Laws,  vide  the  end  of  this  Lecture. 


314  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

The  mental  activity  of  our  age  has  given  birth  not 
only  to  a  theistic  dualism  kindred  to  that  of  ancient 
times,  but  to  what  may  be  characterised  as  an 
agnostic  dualism,  of  which  the  chief  representative 
is  Mr.  Huxley.  This  distinguished  scientist  took  a 
pessimistic  view  of  nature,  seeing  in  its  methods  of 
pursuing  its  ends  in  the  process  of  evolution  a  brutal 
indifference  to  morality,  which,  apart  from  all  other 
grounds  of  doubt,  made  the  hypothesis  of  a  divine 
Creator  hard  of  credence.  Yet  Mr.  Huxley  was  not 
a  pessimist  out  and  out.  What  saved  him  from 
sinking  to  that  level  was,  besides  his  English  good 
sense,  his  robust  manly  faith  in  the  supreme  worth 
and  imperious  obligations  of  morality.  He  was  a 
dualist  after  a  fashion  :  the  conflict  in  his  theory  of 
the  universe  being  not  between  a  good  God  and  a 
bad  God,  as  Zoroaster  conceived,  or  between  a  good 
God  and  an  intractable  primitive  matter,  as  Plato 
imagined,  but  between  Evolution  and  Ethics,  or 
between  a  physical  nature  entirely  innocent  of 
morality  and  man,  in  so  far  as  earnestly-minded  to 
realise  an  ethical  ideal.  Man  ethically-minded  is  a 
gardener  cultivating  a  small  patch  of  ground  wherein 
he  seeks  to  rear  the  fruits  and  flowers  of  human 
virtue,  striving  heroically  to  keep  out  the  weeds 
of  the  wilderness  beyond  the  fence,  that  is  to  say 
the  moral  barbarism  of  Nature.  In  the  value  which 
it  sets  on  moral  endeavour  this  agnostic  dualism  is 
Christian,  though  in  his  temper  its  author  and 


MODERN  DUALISM  315 

advocate  is  a  disciple  of  the  Stoics  rather  than  of 
Christ.  The  zeal  for  morality  which  it  inculcates 
may  well  appear  an  alien  phenomenon  in  a  universe 
which  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  without  a  good  God 
or  indeed  a  God  of  any  kind,  and  is  itself  the 
product  of  a  cosmic  process  that  'has  no  sort  of 
relation  to  moral  ends'  ;x  and  one  may  very  reason- 
ably doubt  whether  such  zeal  can  long  survive  the 
theistic  creed  of  which  it  forms  an  integral  part. 
But  let  us  be  thankful  that  it  does  still  survive  here 
and  there  in  agnostic  circles,  and  acknowledge  those 
who,  without  the  support  of  faith,  manfully  fight 
for  the  right  as  friends,  not  foes,  to  the  great  cause 
which  all  true  theists  have  at  heart. 

With  this  passing  reference  to  a  type  of  thought 
which  discovers  no  divine  element  in  the  world 
save  in  man,  I  pass  to  speak  more  at  length  of 
dualism  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  that  is  to 
say,  of  the  religious  philosophy  which,  believing  in 
a  Deity,  makes  it  its  business  to  protect  his  character 
from  being  compromised  by  evil.  The  view  of 
Nature  entertained  by  the  representatives  of  this 
philosophy  is  not  so  dark  as  that  of  Mr.  Huxley. 
It  discovers  some  good  in  the  cosmic  process 
whereon  an  argument  may  be  founded  for  goodness 
as  an  attribute  of  the  Great  First  Cause.  But  it 
discovers  also  so  much  that  is  not  good  that  it 
professes  itself  unable  to  retain  faith  in  the  divine 

1  Evolution  and  Ethics^  p.  83. 


316  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

goodness  except  on  the  hypothesis  that  its  beneficent 
purpose  has  been  thwarted  by  some  counterworking 
power. 

The  rudiments  of  this  dualistic  theory  may  be 
discovered  in  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill's  Three  Essays 
on  Religion.  The  author  of  these  posthumous 
essays  is  indeed  far  from  being  a  satisfactory  re- 
presentative of  the  theory.  He  is  almost  as  pessi- 
mistic in  his  conception  of  Nature  as  Mr.  Huxley, 
and  he  is  at  the  best  a  very  faint-hearted  and 
hesitating  theist.  The  indictment  he  brings  against 
the  physical  system  of  the  universe  for  the  brutalities 
it  daily  perpetrates  is  tremendous,  and  his  summing 
up  of  the  net  results  of  Natural  Theology  on  the 
question  of  the  divine  attributes  is  very  disenchant- 
ing. Here  it  is.  *  A  Being  of  great  but  limited 
power,  how  or  by  what  limited  we  cannot  even  con- 
jecture; of  great,  and  perhaps  unlimited  intelligence, 
but  perhaps,  also,  more  narrowly  limited  than  his 
power :  who  desires,  and  pays  some  regard  to,  the 
happiness  of  his  creatures,  but  who  seems  to  have 
other  motives  of  action  which  he  cares  more  for, 
and  who  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  have  created 
the  universe  for  that  purpose  alone.'1  The  sum- 
mation is  not  only  meagre  in  its  total,  but  it  adds 
together  attributes  suggestive  of  incompatible  con- 
ceptions. The  phrase  'of  great  but  limited  power* 
fits  into  the  hypothesis  of  a  Being  absolutely  good 

1  Three  Essays,  p.  194. 


MODERN  DUALISM  317 

in  his  intentions,  but  unable  to  do  all  he  wishes— 
the  conception  proper  to  dualism.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  formula  in  the  last  part  of  the  statement 
referring  to  the  divine  motives  of  action  goes  on 
the  assumption  that  the  power  of  Deity  is  unlimited, 
that  he  is  therefore  responsible  for  all  that  happens, 
and  that  his  moral  character  is  to  be  judged 
accordingly — an  idea  emphatically  negatived  by 
the  dualist. 

The  interest  and  value  of  Mr.  Mill's  views  lies 
not  in  their  adequacy  or  in  their  consistency,  but  in 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  man  feeling  his  way.  With 
an  open,  unprejudiced  eye,  and  without  the  blinders 
of  a  philosophical  or  theological  theory,  he  looked  all 
round  on  the  world,  trying  to  learn  from  the  things 
he  observed  what  sort  of  a  Being  its  Maker  must 
be,  assuming  that  it  has  one,  and  then  honestly 
reported  how  it  struck  him.  Every  statement  in 
the  report  of  such  an  observer  is  worth  noting, 
whether  it  agree  with  other  statements  or  not. 
Accordingly,  I  note  with  interest  what  I  have  called 
the  rudiments  of  a  dualistic  theory  in  the  essay  on 
Nature.  It  is  contained  in  this  significant  sentence: 
'If  we  are  not  obliged  to  believe  the  animal  creation 
to  be  the  work  of  a  demon,  it  is  because  we  need 
not  suppose  it  to  have  been  made  by  a  Being  of 
infinite  power.'1  The  facts  to  which  the  suggestive 
remark  refers  are  those  alluded  to  in  the  sentence 

1  Three  Essays,  p.  58. 


3i8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

preceding,  which  runs  thus :  '  If  a  tenth  part  of  the 
pains  which  have  been  expended  in  finding  benevo- 
lent adaptations  in  all  nature  had  been  employed 
in  collecting  evidence  to  blacken  the  character  of 
the  Creator,  what  scope  for  comment  would  not 
have  been  found  in  the  entire  existence  of  the  lower 
animals,  divided,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  into 
devourers  and  devoured,  and  a  prey  to  a  thousand 
ills  from  which  they  are  denied  the  faculties 
necessary  for  protecting  themselves ! ' l  It  is  im- 
plied that  the  blackening  process  might  be  carried 
the  length  of  making  out  the  Creator  to  be  a  very 
demon,  and  the  suggested  escape  from  that  un- 
welcome conclusion  is  limitation  of  the  Creator's 
power  by  what  we  may  suppose  to  be  the  thwarting 
power  of  another  demon.  Malign  influence  is  at 
work  somewhere.  If  God  be  not  the  demon,  then 
he  must  be  discovered  in  an  antigod  of  diabolic 
nature. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Mr.  Mill  seriously  en- 
tertained the  project  of  reviving  Persian  dualism  as 
the  best  possible  solution  of  the  problem  raised  by 
the  conflicting  phenomena  of  the  universe.  The 
notion  of  a  demon  counterworking  the  Good  Spirit 
seems  to  have  been  a  passing  thought  thrown  out 
by  an  active  mind  fertile  in  suggestion.2  But  one 

1  Three  Essays,  p.  58. 

2  In  the  essay  on  '  The  Utility  of  Religion '  (second  of  the  Three 
£ssays)t  p.   116,  Mr.   Mill  speaks  with  respect  of  dualism  both  in  the 
Persian  or  Manichrcan,  and  in  the  1'latonic  form,  as  the  only  theory 


MODERN  DUALISM  319 

can  never  be  sure  that  the  stray  hint  of  one  thinker 
will  not  become  the  deliberate  theory  of  another, 
especially  in  a  time  like  the  present,  when  men  are 
extensively  leaving  the  safe  havens  of  traditional 
opinions  and  launching  out  on  new  voyages  of  dis- 
covery. At  such  a  time  long-extinct  theories  may 
be  revived  with  the  ardour  and  confidence  inspired 
by  fresh  revelations,  and  crude  notions  propounded 
with  all  the  gravity  of  scientific  method.  It  is  not 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  treat  such  escapades  of 
modern  religious  thought  with  contempt.  They  at 
least  serve  to  show  that  there  is  some  problem 
troubling  men's  minds  which  has  not  yet  received 
a  generally  accepted  solution,  and  when  a  sincere 
thinker  frankly  tells  us  that  he  is  among  the  mal- 
contents and  has  something  better  to  offer,  the 
least  we  can  do  is  to  listen  respectfully.  Ardent 
optimists  may  exclaim  :  *  After  Browning  who 
would  have  expected  a  recrudescence  of  dualism, 
not  to  speak  of  pessimism ! '  Yet  dualists  may 
make  their  appearance  just  because  there  are  men 
amongst  us  who  have  learned  the  lesson  of  Browning 
too  well,  and  who  judge  the  world  by  the  standard 
of  an  extravagant  abstract  optimism  for  which  the 
great  poet  cannot  be  held  responsible. 

respecting  the  origin  and  government  of  the  universe  which  stands 
wholly  clear  both  of  intellectual  contradiction  and  of  moral  obliquity. 
But  he  pronounces  the  evidence  for  it  as  shadowy  and  unsubstantial, 
and  mildly  characterises  its  possible  truth  as  a  '  pleasing  and  encour- 
aging thought.' 


320  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

A  really  capable  and  well-reasoned  defence  of  a 
dualism  of  the  Persian  type  has  recently  been 
given  to  the  world  in  a  book  entitled  Evil  and 
Evolution,  by  the  author  of  The  Social  Horizon. 
Its  sub-title  is :  'An  attempt  to  turn  the  light  of 
modern  science  on  to  the  ancient  mystery  of  evil.' 
The  author  accepts  without  reserve  the  theory  of 
evolution  by  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  involving 
struggle  and  the  destruction  of  the  less  fit,  as  true 
to  the  actual  facts  of  this  universe.  But  he  does 
not  regard  the  actual  as  the  only  possible,  or  the 
necessary,  state  of  matters.  Something,  he  holds, 
went  wrong  in  the  evolutionary  process  at  a  far- 
back  stage,  whence  came  in  all  the  dark  features 
which  have  perplexed  theists  and  supplied  writers 
like  Mill  with  copious  material  for  a  Jeremiad 
against  Nature.  And  who  or  what  caused  the 
wrong?  The  unhesitating  answer  of  our  author  is  : 
'  The  devil.'  As  a  man  living  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  imbued  with  the  scientific  spirit,  and  aware 
that  in  the  view  of  many  the  idea  of  a  devil  is 
finally  and  for  ever  exploded,  he  feels  that  an 
apology  is  due  to  his  readers  for  reviving  so  anti- 
quated a  conception.  His  apology  is  that  that  con- 
ception renders  the  origin  and  nature  of  evil  com- 
paratively simple  and  intelligible,  and  that  'to 
eliminate  Satan  is  to  make  the  moral  chaos  around 
us  more  chaotic,  the  darkness  more  impenetrable, 
the  great  riddle  of  the  universe  more  hopelessly 


MODERN  DUALISM  321 

insoluble,'  while  retention  of  belief  in  his  existence 
is  '  the  only  condition  upon  which  it  is  possible  to 
believe  in  a  beneficent  God.'1  For  taking  up  this 
position  he  has  received  the  thanks  of  reviewers  in 
religious  periodicals,  not  so  much,  apparently,  be- 
cause it  offers  a  satisfactory  solution  of  a  vexed 
question,  as  because  it  is  in  one  point  a  return  to 
old-fashioned  orthodoxy.  But  he  himself  professes 
no  interest  in  orthodoxy  as  such.  He  rests  his 
claim  to  consideration  solely  on  the  arguments  by 
which  he  endeavours  to  show  that  the  hypothesis 
of  a  devil  or  an  antigod,  bent  on  doing  all  the 
mischief  he  can,  throws  light  on  phenomena  con- 
nected with  the  evolution  of  the  universe  not  other- 
wise explicable,  and  irreconcilable  with  that  good- 
ness of  God  in  which  he  firmly  believes. 

The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  is  not  so  pessi- 
mistic in  his  view  of  Nature  as  Mr.  Huxley  or  even 
Mr.  Mill.  He  believes  the  good  to  be  the  stronger 
force  in  the  world.2  He  is  not  inclined  to  exagge- 
rate the  physical  evils  of  the  animal  world ;  he  is 
rather  disposed  to  believe  that  they  are  enormously 
less  than  they  are  often  represented.  The  well- 
known  phrase  to  which  Tennyson  gave  currency : 
'  Nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw/  conveys,  he  thinks, 
a  very  false  impression.  *  Nature  on  the  whole/ 
he  maintains,  'is  nothing  of  the  kind.  Nature  is 
all  aglow  with  pleasure — dashed  with  pain  just  here 

1  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  7.  2  Ibid.t   p.  64. 

X 


322  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

and  there.  The  rule  everywhere  is  the  prevalence 
of  happiness.  Evil  is  the  comparatively  trivial 
exception.  It  cannot  reasonably  be  disputed  that, 
taking  the  world  all  over,  and  all  its  phases  of  life, 
the  laws  of  Nature  are  overwhelmingly  productive 
of  good,  and  that  evil — though  frightful  enough  in 
the  aggregate  regarded  absolutely — is  after  all  only 
what  might  be  produced  by  a  very  slight  disturbance 
of  the  perfect  adjustment  of  things.' 1  He  finds  in 
the  animal  kingdom  not  merely  voracity,  but  al- 
truism, at  work.  It  came  in  just  at  the  point  where 
it  was  needed,  at  that  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the 
animal  world  when  it  became  possible  for  selfishness 
to  be  in  any  sense  an  evil.2  He  sees  the  evidence 
of  the  presence  and  power  of  the  new  principle  of 
love  in  the  predominance  of  parental  affection  over 
selfishness,  in  the  case  of  animals  with  their  young, 
and  in  the  attachments  which,  apart  from  parental 
affection  and  sexual  passion,  animals  are  capable  of 
towards  one  another. 

On  the  whole,  the  world  is  so  good  that  one  cannot 
sufficiently  wonder  why  it  is  not  better.  It  cannot 
be  the  Creator's  fault.  The  prevalence  of  happy 
life,  and  the  inbringing  of  a  beneficent  principle 
counteractive  of  selfishness  just  at  the  proper  point, 
reveal  what  the  Creator  aimed  at.  His  benignant 
will  is  further  shown  in  other  instances  in  which, 
when  a  law  of  nature  is  in  danger  of  becoming  a 

1  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  98.  '  Ibid.,  p.  158. 


MODERN  DUALISM  323 

source  of  evil,  its  action  is  suspended  by  the  action 
of  another  law.  A  case  in  point  is  :  water  contract- 
ing and  becoming  denser  by  cold  down  to  a  certain 
temperature,  below  which  it  begins  to  expand  and 
grow  lighter,  having  for  result  that  ice  floats  on  the 
surface  instead  of  sinking  to  the  bottom,  to  lie  there 
for  ever  and  go  on  accumulating  till  the  sea  became 
a  solid  mass  and  life  impossible.1  Such  facts,  it  is 
argued,  show  what  the  world  might  have  been,  and 
would  have  been,  had  the  Creator  been  able  to  carry 
out  his  intention  :  laws  always  modified  or  counter- 
acted when  in  danger  of  becoming  hurtful ;  love 
made  so  strong  as  to  keep  in  due  subjection  the 
selfishness  which  has  filled  the  animal  world  with 
internecine  strife. 

Whence  the  great  miscarriage?  From  the  inter- 
ference of  a  being  possessing  'the  intellect  and  the 
power  of  a  god  and  the  malignity  of  a  devil.' 2  He 
is  to  be  conceived  as  looking  out  upon  the  work  of 
creation,  watching  his  chance  of  doing  mischief  on  a 
great  scale,  and  finding  it  at  the  point  where, '  in  the 
slow  unfolding  of  life,  love  and  selfishness  first  came 
into  conflict.'3  Not  that  that  is  supposed  to  be  the 
time  at  which  the  Satanic  monster  began  to  exist,  or 
even  to  act  suo  more.  Both  his  existence  and  his 
malign  activity  are  dated  as  far  back  as  the  'day- 
dawn  of  creation,  or  shortly  after.'4  But  his  first 

1  Evil  and  Evlution,  p.  74.  2  Ibid.,  p.  138. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  158.  «  Ibid.,  p.  64. 


324  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

serious  stroke  of  business  as  a  marrer  of  God's  work 
consisted  in  altering  the  relative  strength  of  selfish- 
ness and  love,  so  as,  against  the  Creator's  intention, 
to  secure  for  selfishness  the  predominance.  If  you 
ask  how  that  was  done,  the  modern  reviver  of  Persian 
dualism  cannot  tell ;  he  can  only  speak  of  the  fell 
achievement  as  a  disturbance  of  the  divinely  ordered 
adjustment  by  some  inscrutable  modification  of  law. 
The  Satanic  method  generally  is  to  bring  about 
maladjustment.  He  is  not  a  law-maker,  or  a  worker 
according  to  law,  but  a  disturber  of  law.  The  good 
Spirit,  the  Creator,  works,  we  are  told, '  by  means  of 
law  and  only  by  means  of  law/  but  his  arch-enemy 
works  by  the  disturbance  of  law  to  the  effect  of  pro- 
ducing '  flaws  and  failures '  in  the  established  order 
of  nature.1 

This  one  disturbance  of  the  divinely  intended 
balance  between  the  principle  of  selfishness  and 
the  counter-principle  of  love  was  momentous  and 
tragic  enough.  We  have  only  to  imagine  what 
evolution  without  this  maladjustment  might  have 
been,  to  realise  in  some  degree  the  extent  of  the 
mischief.  In  the  unmarred  world  of  God  the 
struggle  for  existence  would  have  had  no  place. 
In  consequence  of  that,  birds  and  beasts  of  prey 
would  not  have  been  evolved.2  Tigers  and  hyaenas, 
vultures  and  sharks,  ferrets  and  polecats,  wasps 
and  spiders,  puff-adders  and  skunks,  would  have 

1  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  93.  *  Ibid.,  p.  142. 


MODERN  DUALISM  325 

been  as  conspicuous  by  their  absence  as  Neros 
and  Buonapartes  and  millionaires.1  For  it  is  the 
struggle  for  existence  that  has  produced  birds  and 
beasts  of  prey,  and  in  all  probability  it  is  the 
malignity  of  the  struggle  that  has  produced  the 
venom  of  so  many  reptiles.2  Then,  in  a  world  in 
which  there  was  no  wholesale  destruction  there 
would  be  no  need  for  the  immense  fertility  that 
characterises  many  species  of  living  creatures,  which 
at  once  supplies  food  for  foes  and  makes  foes 
necessary  to  keep  teeming  life  within  bounds.  The 
cod-fish  would  produce  only  as  many  young  as  are 
left  after  its  predatory  enemies  have  done  their 
utmost  to  destroy  its  millions  of  progeny.  For 
the  fertility  of  the  actual  world  is  to  be  conceived 
as  the  result  of  the  destruction  that  goes  on,  and 
the  destruction  in  turn  as  the  effect  of  the  fertility. 
Destruction  demands  and  produces  superabundance, 
and  superabundance  destruction.3 

Within  the  human  sphere,  in  the  world  of  divine 
intention,  the  state  of  things  would  have  corre- 
sponded to  that  of  the  ideal  animal  world.  War 
would  have  been  unknown.  Animals  would  not 
have  been  killed  for  food.  The  hunting  and  pastoral 
occupations  of  primitive  society  would  have  had  no 
existence.  Men  would  have  been  content  to  live  on 
such  fruits  and  vegetables  as  they  could  find  till  they 
learned  the  arts  of  agriculture.  Vegetarianism  would 

1  Evil  and  Evolution ,  p.  144.        2  Ibid.,  p.  142.        3  Ibid.,  p.  150. 


326  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

have  been  the  order  of  the  day.1  Verily  a  different 
world  from  the  one  we  actually  live  in !  And  all 
the  difference  is  due  to  the  one  act  of  interference 
whereby  a  malignant  spirit  secured  for  the  selfish 
principle  preponderant  power  in  the  universe. 

How  are  we  to  conceive  this  malevolent  being, 
and  what  precise  place  are  we  to  assign  him  in 
the  scale  of  being?  At  first  view  he  appears 
mightier  than  God,  possessed  of  skill  and  power 
to  get  and  keep  the  reins  of  the  universe  in  his 
hands.  How  he  ever  came  to  be  is  a  question 
that  will  have  to  be  looked  at  hereafter ;  mean- 
time we  wish  to  know  what  idea  we  are  to  form 
of  his  nature  and  endowments.  Our  guide  here 
must  be  his  achievements ;  and  these  suggest  a 
being  of  very  imposing  attributes.  The  modern 
dualist,  accordingly,  while  careful  to  place  him 
beneath  God,  invests  him  with  very  godlike  quali- 
ties. The  Satan  of  most  recent  invention  is  a 
being  after  this  fashion.  He  was  in  existence 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and  from  the 
beginning  was  on  evil  bent,  not,  like  Milton's 
Satan,  a  good  angel  at  first,  who  subsequently 
fell.2  He  has  a  nature  akin  to  that  of  God  ;  is, 
like  God,  a  spiritual  power  endowed  with  similar 
faculties  combining  the  intellect  and  energy  of 
God  with  the  malignity  of  a  devil.3  He  has  god- 
like perception,  enabling  him  to  comprehend  the 

1  Evil aiid Evolution,  p.  157.         a  Ibid.,  p.  64.         *  Ibid.,  pp.  62,  138. 


MODERN  DUALISM  327 

intricacies  of  the  cosmic  system,  the  possibilities 
latent  in  primordial  matter,  and  the  hidden  nature 
of  all  physical  forces  such  as  that  of  gravitation.1 
He  can  impose  his  will  on  the  elementary  particles 
of  matter,  lay  down  laws,  fit  one  law  for  modifying 
or  balancing  another,  and  disturb  the  adjustments 
made  by  the  Creator.2  He  cannot  wreck  creation, 
but  his  power  is  equal  to  unsettling  the  balance 
and  seriously  disturbing  the  divine  adjustment  of 
things.3  He  has  been  engaged  in  this  bad  work 
during  the  millions  of  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  the  world  began,  and,  as  we  must  suppose 
that  the  good  Spirit  would  gladly  have  put  an 
end  to  his  evil  influence  long  ago,  if  it  had  been 
possible,  the  inference  is  that  the  wicked  Spirit  is 
too  potent  to  be  readily  subdued  and  overcome ; 
that  his  power,  indeed,  approximates  to  that  of 
the  Supreme  Being  himself.4  Yet  this  approxima- 
tion must  be  taken  cum  grano.  The  supremacy  of 
the  Great  First  Cause  must  be  guarded,  and  in 
order  to  that  it  must  be  held  as  an  article  of 
faith,  in  spite  of  all  appearances  to  the  contrary, 
that  between  the  potency  of  the  evil  Spirit  and 
that  of  the  good  Spirit  there  is  'an  infinity  of 
difference.'5  Satan  could  neither  create  a  world, 
nor  prevent  another  from  creating  it ;  he  could 
only  mar  a  world  already  made.6  And  though  he 

1  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  63.          2  Ibid.,  p.  63.  3  Ibid.,  p.  63. 

4  Ibid.,  pp.  48,  62.  6  Ibid.,  p.  91.  •  Ibid.,  p.  92. 


328  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

be  so  strong  that  the  Maker  of  the  Universe, 
however  desirous,  cannot  destroy  him  and  his  in- 
fluence offhand,  yet  his  doom  is  eventual  defeat 
and  destruction.  The  time  will  come  in  the  far 
future  when  the  benignant  Creator  'shall  reign 
with  a  sway  absolutely  undisputed.'1 

In  proceeding  to  criticise  this  latest  attempt  at  a 
dualistic  theory  of  the  universe,  I  frankly  own  at  the 
outset  that  it  deserves  at  least  the  praise  of  ingenuity. 
The  modern  Satan  is  skilfully  constructed.  The 
construction  proceeds  on  the  inductive  method  of 
modern  science.  First,  all  the  good  elements  and 
beneficent  aspects  of  the  universe  are  picked  out,  and 
from  these  are  formed  the  idea  of  the  Being  to  whom 
is  assigned  the  honourable  position  and  name  of  the 
Creator.  Then  the  remaining  features,  forming  the 
dark  side  of  nature,  are  collected  and  examined.  From 
their  wholly  diverse  character  it  is  inferred,  in  the  first 
place,  that  they  must  owe  their  existence  to  a  Being 
whose  spirit  is  absolutely  antagonistic  to  that  of  the 
Creator.  From  the  proportion  which  the  evil  element 
bears  to  the  good,  and  from  the  relation  in  which 
the  former  stands  to  the  latter,  the  status,  attributes, 
and  modus  operandi  of  the  evil  Spirit  are  determined. 
The  whole  process  bears  a  look  of  patient  investiga- 
tion which  seems  to  justify  the  claim  made  for  Evil 
and  Evolution  '  that  it  is  an  attempt  to  turn  the  light 
of  modern  science  on  to  the  ancient  mystery  of  evil.' 

1  Evil  and  Evolution  t  p.  184.  The  words  quoted  above  are  the  last 
in  the  book. 


MODERN  DUALISM  329 

The  attempt,  however,  is  very  open  to  criticism. 

i.  I  remark  in  the  first  place,  that  the  scheme  of 
thought  whereof  an  outline  has  been  given  has  for 
its  underlying  postulate  what  may  be  characterised 
as  an  extravagant  optimism  of  a  peculiar  type. 
There  are  at  least  three  distinguishable  forms  of 
optimism.  There  is  the  type  of  which  Browning 
is  the  best  -  known  modern  representative,  which 
says :  *  In  the  actual  world  there  is  much  wrong, 
but  all  is  in  course  of  becoming  right/  and 
thinks  that  enough  to  justify  God  and  content 
reasonable  men.  Then  there  is  the  optimism  of 
the  pantheist,  which  says :  *  The  actual  world  as  it 
is  is  right.'  There  is,  finally,  the  optimism  of  the 
modern  dualist,  which  differs  from  both  the  pre- 
ceding types :  from  pantheistic  optimism  by  main- 
taining that  in  the  actual  world  there  is  much 
that  is  wrong,  and  from  optimism  of  the  Browning 
type  by  maintaining  that  the  mere  fact  that  the 
wrong  is  in  course  of  being  set  right  does  not 
furnish  a  sufficient  vindication  of  Providence.  Faith 
in  an  absolutely  good  God  it  holds  to  be  untenable 
on  the  hypothesis  that  God  is  responsible  for  the 
actual  world,  though  all  the  evil  that  is  in  it  be 
destined  to  be  ultimately  eliminated.  Therefore  it 
takes  refuge  in  the  ideal  world,  the  world  of  might- 
have-been,  and  which  would  have  been  if  God 
had  got  his  own  way.  That  world,  as  it  lives 
in  the  dualistic  imagination,  might  be  described 


330  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

as  a  paradise  never  lost,  and  therefore  not  needing 
to  be  regained.  Pain  practically  unknown,  predatory 
instincts  non-existent,  the  wolf  dwelling  with  the 
lamb,  and  the  leopard  lying  down  with  the  kid ; 
man  from  the  beginning  'a  perfect  creature  in 
a  perfect  environment/1  thinking  always  right 
thoughts  on  questions  of  good  and  evil,  showing 
no  desire  to  do  wrong ;  even  primitive  man  utterly 
free  from  savagery,  and  innocent  of  hunting  and 
warring  propensities ;  development  possible  but 
ever  normal  and  free  from  sin,  and  deriving  its 
moral  stimulus,  not  from  pain  and  sorrow,  but 
from  pleasure  and  joy.2  In  that  happy,  harmless 
world  death  would  not  be  unknown,  but  it  would 
come  merely  as  sleep  after  a  long  day's  work,  or 
like  '  the  fading  of  a  flower,  the  dropping  of  fruit 
in  the  late  autumn,  the  dying  out  of  the  light  of 
day  to  the  dreamy  music  of  the  birds  and  the 
babbling  of  the  brooks.'8  It  would  be  as  easy  to 
die  in  such  a  world  as  'in  a  world  of  perfect 
health,  there  is  abundant  reason  to  believe,  it 
would  be  to  be  born.'4  It  would  be  such  a  de- 
lightful world,  indeed,  that  merely  to  live  in  it  for, 
say,  a  hundred  years,  would  satisfy  all  legitimate 
cravings  for  existence ;  a  hereafter  would  not  be 
felt  to  be  necessary.6 

Such  is  the  ideally  best  world  of  dualistic  dreams. 

1  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  103.  *  Ibid.,  p.  33. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  176.  *  Ibid.,  p.  177.  8  f^id.,  p.  177- 


MODERN  DUALISM  331 

It  may  be  a  very  good  world,  so  far  as  sentient 
happiness  is  concerned,  but  is  it  in  any  true  sense 
a  moral  world?  The  demand  of  the  theory  is  that 
in  the  lower  animal  creation  there  shall  be  little 
pain,1  and  in  the  human  sphere  not  only  little  pain 
but  no  sin.  It  postulates  not  merely  that  there 
may  be  a  world  without  sin,  but  that  there  must 
be,  in  so  far  as  divine  intention  is  concerned,  if 
we  are  to  believe  that  God  is  good.  Such  is  the 
kind  of  world  we  should  have  had  but  for  diabolic 
interference.  The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution 
assumes  that  at  this  point  he  is  in  accord  with 
the  author  of  Genesis.  He  credits  the  book  of 
Genesis  with  the  view  that  God  made  man  ab- 
solutely perfect,  and  that  man  would  have  con- 
tinued such  had  not  Satan  seduced  him  into  evil.2 
There  is  reason  for  thinking  that,  following  the 
example  of  scholastic  theologians,  our  author  has 
read  into  the  story  of  Adam  a  meaning  which  its 
statements  will  not  bear.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  opinion  he  imputes  to  the  sacred  writer 
is  at  least  his  own.  He  believes  that  the  primitive 
man,  the  outcome  of  a  slow  secular  process  of 
evolution,  was  in  the  strict  sense  morally  perfect. 

1  The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  thinks  that  in  the  world  which 
might  have  been,  pain  would  have  been 'comparatively  infinitesimal  in 
amount,  that  it  would  have  had  a  self-evident  cause  and  purpose,  that 
it  would  have  been  remedied  by  nature,  and  that  it  would  never  have 
been  caused  by  the  direct  operation  of  law.      Vidz  p.  87. 

2  Vide  pp.  23,  24. 


33*  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

This  conception  raises  some  hard  questions.  How 
did  it  come  about  that  a  morally  perfect  man  was 
so  easily  tempted  even  by  a  tempter  of  diabolic 
skill?  Ought  not  a  morally  perfect  being  to  be 
temptation-proof?  Then,  if,  as  is  supposed,  the 
good  God  was  able  to  conduct  the  evolution  of 
the  human  creature,  with  entire  success,  up  to  that 
point,  in  spite  of  all  Satanic  attempts  at  marring 
the  great  work  of  making  a  morally  perfect  being, 
why  should  he  encounter  such  fatal  frustration  after 
that  consummation  had  been  reached?  Lastly,  and 
above  all,  one  is  forced  to  ask :  Is  this  notion  of  a 
moral  subject  made  perfect  and  guaranteed  against 
lapse  by  Divine  power  not  destructive  of  morality? 
The  reality  of  moral  distinctions  may  be  undermined 
in  more  than  one  way.  One  way  is  that  of  the 
pantheist  who  affirms  that  moral  evil,  so  called,  is 
in  its  own  place  good.  But  another  way  is  that  of 
the  modern  dualist,  who  in  effect  affirms  that  in  a 
divinely  ordered  universe  moral  evil  would  be  im- 
possible. May  one  not  venture  to  say  that  the 
actual  universe,  full  though  it  be  of  wrong,  is 
preferable  to  the  imaginary  universe  from  which 
wrong  is  excluded  by  divine  omnipotence?  Com- 
pulsory holiness  is  not  holiness ;  it  is  simply  the 
mechanical  service  of  a  tool. 

2.  The  exemption  of  the  good  Spirit  from  re- 
sponsibility for  the  misery  and  sin  of  the  actual 
world  is  purchased  at  a  great  price.  That  price  is 


MODERN  DUALISM 

not  merely,  or  even  chiefly,  the  sacrifice  of  divine 
omnipotence;  it  is  rather  the  reluctant  acceptance 
of  the  repulsive,  hideous  conception  of  an  absol- 
utely bad,  unmitigatedly  malignant  antigod.  One's 
whole  soul  rises  in  rebellion  against  this  revolting 
notion.  Is  it  possible  to  believe  that  such  a  being, 
evil  from  the  beginning,  can  exist?  How  could  he 
ever  come  to  be  ?  The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution 
declines  to  look  at  this  question,  but  it  cannot  be 
evaded  by  any  radical  advocate  of  dualism.  There 
are  just  two  alternatives :  either  the  evil  Spirit,  like 
the  good  Spirit,  is  unoriginated,  eternal ; x  or  he 
owes  his  being,  like  all  other  creatures,  to  the  good 
Spirit.  The  former  alternative  amounts  to  this,  that 
good  and  evil  are  both  alike  divine ;  a  position  which 
involves  at  once  the  cancelling  of  moral  distinctions 
and  the  destruction  of  Deity.  If  good  and  evil  be 
both  alike  divine,  then  there  is  no  ground  for  pre- 
ferring good  to  evil  save  personal  liking.  If  there 
be  two  gods  with  equal  rights,  though  radically 
opposed  to  each  other,  then  there  is  no  god.  Two 
rival  gods,  like  two  rival  popes,  destroy  each  other, 
and  leave  the  universe  without  a  divine  head. 

With  the  other  alternative — Satan  the  creature 
of  the  good  Spirit — we  are  in  an  equally  hopeless 
predicament.  What  is  gained  by  relieving  God  of 

1  The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  seems  to  incline  to  this  view. 
He  says :  '  I  can  no  more  undertake  to  say  how  such  a  being  as  Satan 
came  into  existence  than  I  can  account  for  the  existence  of  the  Deity ' 
(p.  8). 


334  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

responsibility  for  all  other  evil  in  the  world,  if  we 
end  by  making  him  responsible  for  the  existence 
of  the  malign  being  by  whom  all  the  mischief  has 
been  wrought?  Is  not  the  presence  in  the  uni- 
verse of  such  an  absolutely  wicked  spirit  an  in- 
finitely greater  evil  than  all  the  other  evils  put 
together?  Better  make  God  the  Creator  of  evil 
under  mitigated  forms  than  the  Creator  of  a  hideous 
being  who  is  an  unmitigated  evil,  and  through  whose 
diabolic  agency  He  becomes  indirectly  the  cause 
of  all  the  evil  that  happens.  There  is,  doubtless, 
one  door  by  which  the  Deity  may  seem  to  escape 
responsibility  for  the  badness  of  Satan  and  his  work, 
viz.,  by  the  hypothesis  that  Satan  was  created  good 
and  afterwards  lapsed  into  evil.  But  it  is  observ- 
able that  our  author  does  not  avail  himself  of  this 
way  of  escape.  He  could  not,  consistently  with 
his  view  of  God's  relation  to  moral  agents  as  that 
of  one  able  and  willing  to  guard  a  moral  world 
conceived  as  good  against  the  intrusion  of  evil.  If 
Satan  was  once  good,  why  did  not  God  keep  him 
from  falling? 

3.  The  dualistic  scheme  under  review,  while  mak- 
ing pretensions  to  scientific  method,  is  unscientific, 
in  so  far  as  it  destroys  the  unity  of  the  universe. 
The  universe  ceases  to  be  the  homogeneous  result 
of  a  uniform  process  of  evolution,  and  becomes  the 
heterogeneous  effect  of  two  processes  counterwork- 
ing each  other.  And  the  two  processes  are  not 


MODERN  DUALISM  335 

only  opposite  in  tendency,  but  discrepant  also  in 
their  method  of  working.  The  Creator  works  only 
by  law,  his  antagonist  works  by  occasional  dis- 
turbance of  law.  The  Creator's  action  is  natural, 
that  of  his  antagonist  is  unnatural,  and  in  a  sense 
supernatural  or  miraculous.  The  Creator  is  im- 
manent in  the  world,  and  works  in  it  from  within 
through  its  inherent  laws  and  forces.  His  antagonist 
is  transcendent,  and  works  upon  the  world  from 
without  as  a  disturbing  influence.  The  whole  con- 
ception implies  a  separation  between  the  evil  and 
the  good  in  nature  which  has  no  existence.  The 
two  in  reality  are  closely  interwoven,  and  are  to 
be  regarded  as  complementary  effects  of  the  same 
causes.  Such  is  the  judgment  of  Mr.  John  Stuart 
Mill,  who,  while  not  committing  himself  to  the 
dualistic  hypothesis,  has,  more  than  any  other  scien- 
tific man  of  modern  times,  expressed  himself  favour- 
ably regarding  it.  Discussing  the  attributes  which 
observation  of  nature  justifies  us  in  ascribing  to 
God,  he  thus  writes :  '  The  indications  of  design 
point  strongly  in  one  direction — the  preservation  of 
the  creatures  in  whose  structure  the  indications  are 
found.  Along  with  the  preserving  agencies  there 
are  destroying  agencies,  which  we  might  be  tempted 
to  ascribe  to  the  will  of  a  different  Creator;  but 
there  are  rarely  appearances  of  the  recondite  con- 
trivance of  means  of  destruction,  except  when  the 
destruction  of  one  creature  is  the  means  of  pre- 


THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

servation  to  others.  Nor  can  it  be  supposed  that 
the  preserving  agencies  are  wielded  by  one  Being, 
the  destroying  agencies  by  another.  The  destroy- 
ing agencies  are  a  necessary  part  of  the  preserving 
agencies :  the  chemical  compositions  by  which  life 
is  carried  on  could  not  take  place  without  a  parallel 
series  of  decompositions.  The  great  agent  of  decay 
in  both  organic  and  inorganic  substances  is  oxida- 
tion, and  it  is  only  by  oxidation  that  life  is  con- 
tinued for  even  the  length  of  a  minute.'1  The 
conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  such  facts  is  ex- 
pressed by  Mr.  Mill  in  these  terms:  *  There  is 
no  ground  in  Natural  Theology  for  attributing 
intelligence  or  personality  to  the  obstacles  which 
partially  thwart  what  seem  the  purposes  of  the 
Creator.'2 

4.  The  advocates  of  dualism  may  justly  be  charged 
with  morbid  views  of  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world. 
They  look  on  some  things  as  evil  that  are  not, 
they  exaggerate  the  evils  that  do  exist,  and  they 
largely  overlook  the  fact  that  evil  is  good  in  the 
making,  or  a  possible  good  not  understood.  The 
author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  regards  vegetarianism 
as  a  necessary  feature  in  the  world  as  it  ought  to 
be.  Is  that  dictum  to  be  accepted  as  final?  He 
reckons  birds  and  beasts  of  prey  as  creatures  of  the 
evil  Spirit  Have  they  not  some  useful  functions 
in  the  world — the  vulture,  e.g.y  as  one  of  Nature's 

1  Three  Essays,  p.  185.  s  Ibid.,  p.  186. 


MODERN  DUALISM  337 

scavengers?  Of  the  exaggerative  habit  we  have  an 
interesting  instance  in  Mr.  Mill's  remarks  on  child- 
birth, which  are  as  follows :  '  In  the  clumsy  provi- 
sion which  she  (Nature)  has  made  for  that  perpetual 
renewal  of  animal  life,  rendered  necessary  by  the 
prompt  termination  she  puts  to  it  in  every  individual 
instance,  no  human  being  ever  comes  into  the  world 
but  another  human  being  is  literally  stretched  on 
the  rack  for  hours  or  days,  not  unfrequently  issuing 
in  death/1  Compare  with  this  the  saying  of  Jesus  : 
*A  woman  when  she  is  in  travail  hath  sorrow, 
because  her  hour  is  come  :  but  as  soon  as  she  is 
delivered  of  the  child,  she  remembereth  no  more 
the  anguish,  for  joy  that  a  man  is  born  into  the 
world.'2  Which  of  these  two  utterances  is  the 
healthier  in  sentiment  and  the  truer  to  the  feelings 
of  the  sufferers  concerned  ? 

It  might  help  to  'cure  the  dualistic  mood  if  those 
who  suffer  from  it  would  make  a  study  of  the  good 
that  is  in  evil.  They  might  take  a  course  of  lessons 
from  Emerson,  and  con  well  such  a  passage  as  this: 
'Wars,  fires,  plagues,  break  up  immovable  routine, 
clear  the  ground  of  rotten  races  and  dens  of  dis- 
temper, and  open  a  fair  field  to  new  men.  There 
is  a  tendency  in  things  to  right  themselves,  and  the 
war  or  revolution  or  bankruptcy  that  shatters  a 
rotten  system  allows  things  to  take  a  new  and 
natural  order.  The  sharpest  evils  are  bent  into 

1  Three  Essays,  p.  30.  2  John  xvi.  21. 

Y 


338  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

that  periodicity  which  makes  the  errors  of  planets 
and  the  fevers  and  distempers  of  men  self-limiting. 
Nature  is  upheld  by  antagonism.  Passions,  re- 
sistance, dangers,  are  educators.  We  acquire  the 
strength  we  have  overcome.  Without  war,  no 
soldier !  without  enemies,  no  hero !  The  sun  were 
insipid  if  the  universe  were  not  opaque.  And  the 
glory  of  character  is  in  affronting  the  horrors  of 
depravity  to  draw  thence  new  nobility  of  power.  .  .  . 
And  evermore  in  the  world  is  this  marvellous 
balance  of  beauty  and  disgust,  magnificence  and 
rats.  Not  Antoninus,  but  a  poor  washerwoman, 
said,  "  The  more  trouble  the  more  lion ;  that 's  my 
principle." ' l 

From  the  same  master  the  dualist  might  learn 
how  many  so-called  evils  are  evil  only  relatively  to 
man's  ignorance.  The  world  for  the  savage  is  full 
of  devils  which  become  good  angels  for -the  man 
who  knows  their  use.  Water,  air,  steam,  fire,  elec- 
tricity, have  all  been  devils  in  their  time.  '  Steam,' 
writes  Emerson,  'was,  till  the  other  day,  the  devil 
which  we  dreaded.  Every  pot  made  by  any  human 
potter  or  brazier  had  a  hole  in  its  cover  to  let  off 
the  enemy,  lest  he  should  lift  pot  and  roof  and  carry 
the  house  away.  But  the  Marquis  of  Worcester, 
Watt,  and  Fulton  bethought  themselves  that  where 
was  power  was  not  devil,  but  was  God ;  that  it  must 
be  availed  of,  and  not  by  any  means  let  off  and 

1  Works t  vol.  ii.  p.  417  ('The  Conduct  of  Life,'  Essay  VH.). 


MODERN  DUALISM  339 

wasted.'1  This  is  wholesome  teaching,  though  it 
come  from  one  whose  optimism  may  be  deemed  ex- 
treme. I  had  rather  think  with  Emerson  than  with 
Huxley  and  Mill  concerning  Nature.  Of  Huxley 
one  has  said  that '  he  is  as  positive,  and,  one  might 
add,  as  enthusiastic,  in  his  faith  that  all  things  work 
together  for  evil  to  those  who  love,  as  Plato  and 
Paul  were  that  all  things  work  together  for  good.'2 
It  is  easy  to  see  on  which  side  the  superior  sanity 
of  thought  lies. 

But  at  this  point  we  may  be  reminded  that  there 
was  a  dualistic  element  both  in  the  Platonic  and  in 
the  Pauline  system  ;  and  the  fact  may  be  pointed  to 
in  proof  that  even  with  the  utmost  desire  to  take 
an  optimistic  view  of  things  strenuous  and  candid 
thinkers  find  dualism  in  some  form  unavoidable. 
Plato  believed  in  an  intractable  matter,  Paul  in  a 
Satan  ;  not  identical,  indeed,  in  all  respects  with  the 
Satan  of  modern  invention,  still  occupying  a  some- 
what similar  position  in  the  universe  as  the  malignant 
marrer  of  God's  work. 

The  statement  cannot  be  denied,  and  it  certainly 
suffices  to  show  that  to  carry  out  the  programme 
of  absolute  optimism  is  difficult  if  not  impossible. 
The  intractable  matter  of  the  Greek  philosopher 
and  the  Satan  of  the  Christian  apostle  testify  to 
the  presence  in  the  physical  and  moral  universe  of 

1  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  322  ('The  Conduct  of  Life,'  Essay  I.). 

2  Gordon,  Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy,  p.  23. 


340  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

a  perplexing  mystery  which  speculative  reason  finds 
it  hard  to  clear  up.  Whether  either  of  the  solutions 
does  more  than  confess  the  mystery  and  call  it  by 
a  peculiar  name  is  another  question.  We  may,  if 
we  choose,  consider  which  of  the  two  names  is  to 
be  preferred.  The  impersonal  abstraction  of  Plato 
is  more  in  accordance  with  Western  habits  of  thought, 
while  the  embodiment  of  evil  in  a  malignant  per- 
sonality commended  itself  to  the  realistic  Semitic 
mind.  Then  the  suggestion  that  the  imperfection 
of  the  world  is  due  to  the  unmanageableness  of  the 
raw  material  out  of  which  it  was  built,  is  free  from 
the  moral  repulsiveness  attaching  to  the  concep- 
tion of  an  intelligent  agent  absolutely  devoted  to 
the  bad  vocation  of  doing  all  the  mischief  in  the 
world  he  can.  But  the  more  important  question 
is,  Whether  our  minds  can  find  final  rest  in  either 
of  the  suggested  solutions  of  the  problem  ?  The  in- 
tractableness  of  matter — why  intractable  ?  Because 
matter  is  independent  of  God,  and  with  its  inherent 
properties  pre-exists  as  a  ready-made  datum  for  the 
divine  Architect  who  proposes  as  far  as  may  be  to 
turn  it  into  a  cosmos.  Can  rea  ^n  rest  in  this  view 
of  God's  relation  to  the  world  ?  How  much  more 
satisfactory  to  think  of  the  physical  universe,  whether 
eternal  or  not,  as  having  its  origin  in  God,  as  exist- 
ing through  spirit  and  for  spirit,  and  thoroughly 
plastic  in  the  hands  of  its  divine  Maker?  On  this 
view  the  intractableness  vanishes ;  there  is  nothing 


MODERN  DUALISM  341 

in  matter  which  God  has  not  put  there,  and  which 
He  cannot  use  for  His  purposes.1 

Turn  now  to  the  Semitic  conception  of  a  personal 
obstructer,  which  may  or  may  not  have  come  into 
Jewish  theology  from  Persia,  and  consider  how  far 
it  offers  a  final  resting-place  for  thought  wrestling 
with  the  problem  of  evil.  We  note  first,  with  satis- 
faction, that  the  Biblical  Satan  has  a  much  more 
restricted  range  of  action  than  the  Satan  of  modern 
dualism.  The  latter  begins  to  meddle  almost  at 
creation's  dawn,  and  becomes  specially  active  at  the 
point  where  the  principle  of  altruism  first  makes 
its  appearance  in  the  animal  world — that  is  to  say, 
ages  before  the  evolution  of  life  culminated  in  man. 
The  Satan  of  Scripture,  on  the  other  hand,  becomes 
active,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  human  sphere,  his 
one  concern  being  to  wreck  the  moral  world  whose 
possibility  was  provided  for  by  the  advent  of  man. 
The  writer  of  Genesis  conceives  of  the  creation  up 
to  that  point  as  good,  no  fault  to  be  found  in  the 
inanimate  or  lower  animate  world  ;  herein  differing 
both  from  Plato,  who  imagined  that  even  the  primi- 
tive hyle  was  not  free  from  fault,  and  from  the  author 
of  Evil  and  Evolution,  who  places  Satanic  activity 

1  In  his  latest  work,  The  Laws,  Plato  seems  to  teach  that  mind  was 
before  matter,  soul  prior  to  body,  so  that  the  intractableness  of  matter 
can  no  longer  be  the  source  of  evil  for  him.  In  this  Dialogue  he  seems 
to  adopt,  instead,  the  Zoroastrian  hypothesis  of  two  spirits  or  souls — 
one  the  author  of  good,  the  other  of  evil.  Vide  Jowett's  Plato,  v. 
pp.  467,  468. 


342  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

far  back  in  the  history  of  creation.  Satan  appears 
in  Scripture  as  the  enemy  of  moral  good,  as  an 
unbeliever  in  it,  and  as  a  tempter  to  moral  evil. 
In  Genesis  the  conception  of  an  external  tempter, 
in  the  mythological  guise  of  a  serpent,  is  employed 
to  make  more  easily  comprehensible  the  origin  of 
sin,  the  doing  of  wrong  by  human  beings  previously 
free  from  transgression.  In  later  Scriptures  the 
same  being,  now  called  Satan,  appears  in  the  same 
capacity,  endeavouring  to  seduce  good  men — David, 
Job,  Jesus  —  to  do  evil  actions  contrary  to  their 
character. 

Such  is  the  function  of  Satan  in  the  Bible.  Waiv- 
ing the  ontological  question  of  objective  reality, 
what  we  have  to  ask  is,  Does  the  idea  of  a  super- 
human tempter  really  solve  the  problem  as  to  the 
origin  of  evil  in  the  first  man  or  in  any  man?  'Who 
can  understand  his  errors?'  asks  the  Psalmist. 
Sometimes  it  is  not  easy  ;  and  in  such  cases  we  may 
employ  the  hypothesis  of  a  transcendental  tempter  as 
a  way  of  expressing  the  difficulty  which  impresses 
the  imagination  while  it  fails  to  satisfy  the  reason. 
This  is  all  that  it  does,  even  in  the  case  of  Adam. 
'Who,'  we  naturally  inquire,  'can  understand  his 
error  ? '  the  error  ex  hypothesi  of  a  previously  errorless 
man.  But  do  we  understand  it  even  with  the  aid 
of  the  tempting  serpent,  on  any  view  of  the  primitive 
state  ?  If  it  was  a  state  of  moral  perfection  in  the 
strict  sense,  ought  not  the  first  man  to  have  been 


MODERN  DUALISM  343 

temptation-proof,  especially  against  such  rudimentary 
forms  of  temptation  as  are  mentioned  in  the  story  ? 
If  it  was  only  a  state  of  childish  innocence,  does  not 
the  introduction  of  supernatural  agency  invest  with 
an  aspect  of  mystery  what  is  in  itself  a  comparatively 
simple  matter,  the  lapse  of  an  utterly  inexperienced 
person?  The  same  remark  applies  to  the  case  of 
David.  In  the  pages  of  the  Chronicler  David 
appears  as  a  saint,  his  moral  shortcomings,  faithfully 
recorded  in  the  earlier  history,  being  left  out  of  the 
account ;  and  Satan  is  represented  as  tempting  him 
to  number  the  people,  as  if  to  make  conceivable 
how  so  good  a  man  could  do  an  action  displeasing 
to  God.  But  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  how  even 
a  godly  king  might  be  betrayed  into  a  transaction  of 
the  kind  specified  by  very  ordinary  motives.  In  the 
case  of  saints  generally  it  may  be  remarked  that 
their  moral  lapses  would  not  appear  so  mysterious 
as  they  are  sometimes  thought  to  be,  if  the  whole 
truth  as  to  their  spiritual  state  were  known.  The 
habit  of  referring  these  lapses,  as  otherwise  incom- 
prehensible events,  to  Satanic  temptation  is  not  free 
from  danger.  It  tends  to  self-deception,  and  to  the 
covering  over  of  some  hidden  evil  in  the  heart  which 
urgently  needs  looking  after. 

Such  abuses  of  the  Biblical  idea  of  a  supernatural 
tempter  are  carefully  to  be  guarded  against.  But 
the  mischief  they  work  is  a  trifle  compared  with  the 
havoc  produced  by  ascribing  to  Satanic  agency  the 


344  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

whole  moral  evil  of  mankind.  That  means  that,  but 
for  Satanic  interference,  the  page  of  human  history 
would  have  been  a  stainless  record  of  the  lives  of 
perfect  men  kept  from  falling  by  the  gracious  power 
of  God.  Such  a  view  carries  two  fatal  consequences. 
It  convicts  God  of  impotence,  and  it  relieves  men  of 
responsibility.  The  one  mighty  being,  and  the  one 
sinner  in  the  world,  is  Satan.  The  story  of  our  race 
is  dark  enough,  but  it  is  not  so  dark  as  that.  It  is 
the  story  of  a  race  of  free  moral  agents  who  are  not 
the  puppets  of  either  Deity  or  devil.  The  sin  of 
man  is  not  a  witness  to  a  frustrated  God,  but  to  a 
God  who  would  rather  have  sin  in  the  world  than 
have  a  world  without  sin  because  tenanted  by  beings 
physically  incapacitated  to  commit  it.  The  very 
transgression  of  a  free  responsible  being  is  in  God's 
sight  of  more  value  than  the  involuntary  rectitude  of 
beings  who  are  forcibly  protected  from  going  wrong. 
If  there  is  to  be  goodness  in  the  world,  it  must  be 
the  personal  achievement  of  the  good.  Not  indeed 
of  the  good  unaided.  The  Divine  Being  is  more 
than  an  onlooker.  He  co-operates  in  every  way  com- 
patible with  due  respect  for  our  moral  personality. 
'  Our  Redeemer,  from  everlasting,  is  Thy  name/ 
Thatt  God  has  been  from  the  first,  and  throughout 
the  entire  history  of  man.  More — an  absolute  pre- 
venter of  evil,  e.g. — He  cannot  be,  simply  because  He 
values  morality.  But  a  Redeemer  He  truly  is,  and  His 
work  as  such  cannot  be  frustrated  by  any  number  of 


MODERN  DUALISM  345 

Satans,  ancient  or  modern.  If  a  Satan  exists,  it  must 
be  because  it  is  always  possible  for  a  moral  subject 
to  make  a  perverted  use  of  his  endowments.  If  such 
a  perverted  being  tempt  man,  his  malign  influence 
is  simply  a  part  of  the  untoward  environment  amid 
which  they  have  to  wrestle  with  evil.  He  cannot  do 
more  than  make  a  subtle  use  of  the  evil  elements  in 
our  own  nature,  with  which  alone  we  need  concern 
ourselves.  Let  us  watch  our  own  hearts,  and  Satan 
will  never  have  a  chance.  If  he  do  gain  an  advantage 
over  us,  it  may  be  for  our  ultimate  benefit  by  showing 
where  unsuspected  weakness  lies.  Let  us  throw  off 
the  incubus  of  an  omnipotent  devil  conjured  up  by 
modern  dualism,  and  go  on  our  way  with  good  hope, 
and  full  faith  that  God  is  with  us,  and  that  He  is 
stronger  than  all  powers,  visible  or  invisible,  that  may 
be  arrayed  against  us.1 

1  That  the  diabolic  element  is  held  in  check  in  human  history  take 
this  in  proof  from  Carlyle  :  '  It  is  remarkable  how  in  almost  all  world- 
quarrels,  when  they  came  to  extremity  there  have  been  Infernal 
Machines,  Sicilian  Vespers,  Guido  [Guy  Fawkes]  Powder-barrels,  and 
such  like  called  into  action ;  and  worth  noting  how  hitherto  not  one 
of  them  in  this  world  has  prospered.  ...  In  all  cases  I  consider  the 
Devil  an  unsafe  sleeping-partner,  to  be  rejected,  not  to  be  admitted  at 
any  premium  ;  by  whose  aid  no  cause  yet  was  ever  known  to  prosper.* 
Historical  Sketches,  p.  68  (1898). 


LECTURE  XI 

MODERN  DUALISM:   RELIGIOUS  AND 
SOCIAL  ASPECTS 

I  ASK  attention  now  to  a  type  of  dualism  for  which 
human  reason  is  the  antagonist  of  the  Deity. 

That  human  reason,  in  the  exercise  of  its  proper 
functions,  might  become  the  enemy  of  God,  is  the 
last  thing  that  would  occur  to  one  who  holds  the 
view  of  man's  place  in  the  universe  which  I  have 
made  the  foundation  of  my  argument  for  a  provi- 
dential order  of  the  world.  On  that  view  man  is  the 
crown  of  the  creative  process,  the  key  to  the  meaning 
of  the  process,  and  also  to  the  nature  of  its  Divine 
Author.  But  reason  is  an  essential  ingredient  in  the 
distmctively  human,  therefore  a  part  of  the  image 
of  God,  a  ray  of  the  divine.  How  unlikely  that  it 
should  prove  to  be  inherently  inaccessible  to  the 
knowledge  of  God,  and  unserviceable  to  the  great 
purpose  for  which  He  made  the  creature  whom  He 
endowed  with  so  noble  a  faculty !  Ought  not  reason 
rather  to  be  a  source  of  the  knowledge  of  God,  a 
revelation  of  God  in  part,  and  also  of  the  world : 
man  rational  revealing  a  rational  God,  and  unfolding 


MODERN  DUALISM  347 

the  meaning  of  a  world  interpretable  to  reason? 
Ought  not  this  same  faculty  to  be  a  willing  instru- 
ment in  the  hand  of  God  for  furthering  the  moral 
evolution  of  humanity,  bringing  to  full  fruition  the 
latent  possibilities  of  human  nature  ? 

This  genial  view  of  reason's  promise  and  potency 
has  not  by  any  means  found  universal  acceptance. 
On  the  contrary,  there  has  ever  been  a  tendency, 
especially  among  theologians,  to  the  vilification  of 
reason.  Concisely  formulated,  the  depreciatory 
theory  of  man's  rational  faculty  is  this :  it  cannot 
find  God  ;  it  is  unwilling  to  receive  a  revelation  of 
God  coming  to  it  from  without ;  it  is  reluctant  to 
serve  God  so  revealed  as  an  instrument  for  ad- 
vancing His  glory  and  the  higher  interests  of 
humanity.  It  is  a  very  dismal  and  depressing 
theory.  The  dualism  considered  in  last  Lecture  is 
sombre  enough.  It  finds  in  the  lower  stages  of 
evolution  manifold  traces  of  an  antigod  counter- 
working the  beneficent  purposes  of  the  Creator. 
But  it  does  not  leave  the  Creator  without  a  witness 
at  any  stage  in  the  world-process ;  even  its  most 
pessimistic  exponent,  John  Stuart  Mill,  being  com- 
pelled to  own  that  some  faint  evidence  of  divine 
benevolence  is  discoverable.  But  suppose  it  were 
otherwise,  suppose  the  sub-human  world  were  with- 
out a  ray  of  divine  light,  unmitigated  diabolic 
darkness  brooding  over  all,  what  a  comfort  if,  on 
arriving  at  the  human,  we  found  that  we  had 


348  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

emerged  at  last  out  of  the  kingdom  of  darkness 
into  the  kingdom  of  light  with  reason  and  conscience 
for  our  celestial  luminaries !  Another  type  of  dual- 
ism, however,  deprives  us  of  this  comfort,  telling  us 
in  effect  that  with  reason  we  are  not  yet  in  the 
kingdom  of  light,  but  still  in  a  godless  region  ;  that 
reason  in  truth  is  simply  a  faculty  enabling  its 
possessor  more  cleverly  and  successfully  to  counter- 
work the  moral  purpose  of  the  Creator.  The 
Ahriman,  the  Satan,  of  this  new  form  of  dualism  is 
a  human  endowment  which  we  had  fondly  imagined 
to  be  a  link  in  the  chain  of  filial  affinity  connecting 
man  with  God.  This  view,  if  accepted,  upsets  our 
whole  doctrine  of  a  providential  order  based  on 
man's  place  in  the  cosmos ;  therefore  it  is  our 
imperative  duty  to  subject  it  to  careful  scrutiny. 

The  first  step  in  the  vilification  of  reason  is  the 
assertion  that  it  cannot  find  God.  This  position,  in 
itself,  does  not  necessarily  involve  a  depreciatory 
estimate  of  reason's  capacity.  Inability  to  find 
may  conceivably  be  due,  not  to  any  fault  in  the 
searcher,  but  to  lack  of  clues  to  the  thing  sought. 
Such  lack  of  clues  to  God  in  nature  is  asserted 
by  many,  some  of  whom  at  least  have  no  wish  to 
disparage  reason.  In  our  time  men  of  different 
schools,  theological  and  philosophical,  agree  in  this 
position.  Thus  an  English  Nonconformist  minister, 
an  adherent  of  the  Ritschlian  school  of  theology, 
expounding  its  views,  writes :  'If  we  will  use  words 


MODERN  DUALISM  349 

carefully,  there  is  no  revelation  in  nature.'1  From 
the  opposite  extreme  of  the  ecclesiastical  horizon 
comes  the  peremptory  voice  of  Cardinal  Newman, 
telling  us  that  from  the  surface  of  the  world  can  be 
gleaned  only  'some  faint  and  fragmentary  views  of 
God/  and  that  the  fact  can  mean  only  one  of  two 
things :  l  either  there  is  no  Creator,  or  He  has  dis- 
owned His  creatures.'  2  A  Transatlantic  philosopher, 
who  describes  his  philosophical  position  as  that  of 
radical  empiricism^  in  harmony  with  these  utterances 
declares  that  natural  religion  has  suffered  definitive 
bankruptcy  in  the  opinion  of  a  circle  of  persons, 
among  whom  he  includes  himself,  and  that  for  such 
persons  'the  physical  order  of  nature,  taken  simply 
as  science  knows  it,  cannot  be  held  to  reveal  any 
one  harmonious  spiritual  intent.'3 

These  oracular  verdicts  on  the  nullity  of  natural 
theology  are  pronounced  in  different  interests :  the 
first  in  support  of  the  thesis  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  sole  source  of  knowledge  of  God  ;  the  second 
•with  the  view  of  making  dependence  on  the  Church 
for  such  knowledge  as  complete  as  possible  ;4  the 

1  P.  T.  Forsyth  on  *  Revelation  and  the  Person  of  Christ '  in  Faith 
and  Criticism ,  p.  100. 

2  Newman's  Grammar  of  Assent,  p.  392. 

3  W.  James,  Tke  Will  to  Believe,  p.  52. 

4  In  his  Apologia,  p.  198,  Newman  lays  down  the  position  that  there 
is  no  medium  in  true  philosophy  between  Atheism  and  Catholicity.    On 
his  whole  doctrine  concerning  the  impotence  of  reason  in  religion  vide 
Principal  Fairbairn's  Catholicism,  Roman  and  Anglican,  pp.  116-140, 
and  pp.  205-236. 


350  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

third  to  inculcate  the  necessity  of  faith  in  an  unseen 
supernatural  order  'in  which  the  riddles  of  the 
natural  order  may  be  found  explained.' 1  The  first- 
mentioned  bias,  that  of  the  Ritschlians,  possesses 
special  interest  and  significance.  It  certainly  means 
no  disrespect  to  human  reason.  It  denies  not  to 
reason  an  eye  capable  of  discerning  the  light ;  it 
simply  affirms  that  from  the  world,  apart  from 
Christ,  no  light  is  forthcoming.  The  Ritschlian  is 
an  Agnostic  so  far  as  natural  theology  is  concerned, 
affirming  that  the  course  of  nature  supplies  no  sure 
traces  of  the  being  or  the  providence  of  God.  Christ 
is  for  him  'the  one  luminous  smile  upon  the  dark 
face  of  the  world.'2  If  reason,  baffled  in  its  quest 
after  God,  can  recognise  in  that  smile  a  light  from 
heaven,  her  affinity  for  the  divine  is  sufficiently 
vindicated. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  this  Lecture 
to  criticise  at  length  the  Ritschlian  programme: 
Outside  Christ  nothing  but  agnosticism.  Suffice  it, 
therefore,  to  remark  that  it  seems  to  me  to  play  into 
the  hands  of  the  absolute  agnostic  quite  as  effectu- 
ally as  the  attitude  of  Cardinal  Newman,  whose 
watchword  was  :  No  knowledge  of  God  except  through 
the  CJiurch.  To  Newman  the  agnostic  reply  is  this : 
Your  position  means  that  to  follow  reason  lands  in 
agnosticism  as  the  only  creed  possible  or  rational  for 

1  James,  The  Will  to  Believe,  p.  51. 

*  Forsyth  in  Faith  and  Criticism^  p.  loo. 


MODERN  DUALISM  351 

all  outside  the  Catholic  Church.  Why,  then,  should 
we  cease  being  agnostics  and  become  Catholics? 
Those  who  maintain  that  no  knowledge  of  God  is 
possible  save  through  Christ  must  be  prepared  for 
a  similar  response.  *  Why,'  it  may  be  asked,  '  must 
we  become  theists  at  the  bidding  of  Jesus,  if  there 
be  nothing  in  the  universe  witnessing  to  God's  being 
and  benignity?  If  Jesus  be  in  possession  of  the 
truth,  how  is  he  so  isolated  ?  Is  the  isolation  not  a 
proof  that  he  was  mistaken  in  his  doctrine  of  a 
Divine  Father  who  cares  for  those  who,  like  himself, 
devote  their  lives  to  the  doing  of  good?' 

If  Christ's  doctrine  of  God  be  true,  there  ought  to 
be  something  in  the  world  to  verify  it.  There  can 
hardly  be  a  real  Divine  Father  in  the  Gospels  if  there 
be  no  traces  of  that  Father  outside  the  Gospels,  in 
the  universe.  If  God  can  be  known  by  any  means,  it 
is  presumable  that  He  can  be  known  by  many  means. 
It  is  intrinsically  probable  that  some  knowledge  of 
God  can  be  reached  by  more  than  one  road.  Why 
should  we  be  so  slow  to  believe  that  the  Divine  can 
be  known?  The  bankruptcy  of  natural  theology  is 
a  gratuitous  proposition.  The  Apostle  Paul  ex- 
presses only  the  judgment  of  good  sense  when  he 
indicates  that  there  is  '  that  which  may  be  known  of 
God '  even  by  Pagans,  and  charges  the  heathen 
world,  not  with  incapacity  to  know  God,  but  with 
unwillingness  to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge.1 
1  Romans  i.  19,  20,  28. 


352  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

This  is  the  reasonable  view  still  for  men  who  walk 
in  the  light  of  modern  science.  In  view  of  man's 
place  in  the  cosmos,  it  is  a  priori  credible  that  there 
is  a  revelation  of  God  in  nature,  and  that  man  in  the 
exercise  of  his  cognitive  faculties  is  capable  of  de- 
ciphering it.  Man  being  rational,  the  presumption 
is  that  God  is  rational,  and  that  Divine  Reason  is 
immanent  in  the  world,  Man  being  moral,  the  pre- 
sumption is  that  God  is  moral,  and  that  traces  of  a 
moral  order  of  the  world  will  discover  themselves 
to  a  discerning  eye.  These  two  positions  being 
conceded,  it  results  that  we  men  are  God's  sons, 
and  that  Goc]  is  our  Father.  Christ's  doctrine  is 
confirmed.  The  new  light  is  the  true  light.  By 
intuition  Jesus  saw  and  said  what  modern  science 
seals. 

Thus  far  of  reason's  power  to  find  God  in  nature. 
We  have  next  to  consider  its  capacity  to  receive 
what  it  cannot  by  its  own  unaided  effort  find. 
Has  reason  an  open  eye  for  light  coming  from  above  ? 

To  simplify  the  question,  let  us  suppose  the 
celestial  light  to  be  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  reported 
in  the  Synoptical  Gospels. 

Now,  even  absolute  agnostics  can  so  far  accept 
that  light  as  to  recognise  its  beauty  and  its  worthi- 
ness to  be  true.  If  they  are  constrained  to  regard 
it  as  the  poetic  dream  of  an  exquisitely  endowed 
mind,  they  can  frankly  admit  that  the  dream  is  very 
lovely,  and  that  it  would  be  well  for  the  world  if  the 


MODERN  DUALISM  353 

fair  vision  corresponded  to  the  outward  fact.  It  is 
with  regret,  not  with  pleasure,  they  find  themselves 
compelled  by  observation  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion 
that  such  correspondence  does  not  exist.  Their 
reason  hesitates  to  accept  the  idea  of  a  Divine 
Father  as  objectively  true,  not  for  lack  of  liking  but 
for  lack  of  evidence. 

Christian  agnostics  advance  beyond  this  position. 
They  accept  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  as  not  only 
beautiful  but  objectively  true,  the  one  ray  of  divine 
light  in  an  otherwise  dark,  godless  universe.  In 
doing  so  they  do  not  consider  themselves  to  be  per- 
forming an  ultra-rational  act  of  transcendental  faith. 
Christ's  teaching  in  their  view  possesses  a  quality 
of  '  sweet  reasonableness '  towards  which  receptivity 
is  the  only  rational  attitude.  Christ's  light,  like 
that  of  the  sun,  appears  to  them  self-evidencing, 
needing  no  supernatural  attestation  by  miracles,1 
or  enforcement  by  awful  sanctions  or  compul- 
sory imposition  as  a  legal  creed  by  ecclesiastical 
authority.  The  Christ  of  history  can  dispense  with 
these  aids  of  uncertain  value,  and  stand  upon  His 
own  merits,  making  His  appeal  directly  from  reason 
to  reason,  from  soul  to  soul. 

Not  thus  has  the  relation  between  reason  and 
revelation  been  conceived  by  all.  A  hard  anti- 

1  For  the  illustration  of  this  attitude  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  Litera- 
ture and  Dogma  may  be  consulted.  Mr.  Arnold,  the  agnostic,  finds 
in  Christ's  doctrine  a  '  sweet  reasonableness '  which  needs  no  miracle  to 
win  for  it  acceptance. 

Z 


354  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

thesis  has  been  set  up  between  reason  and  faith, 
and  men  have  been  conceived  as  accepting  revela- 
tion, so  to  speak,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  as 
if  such  acceptance  could  possibly  have  anything  to 
do  with  either  reason  or  faith.  This  has  come  about 
through  two  causes  :  an  artificial  view  of  the  sub- 
stance of  revelation,  and  a  disparaging  view  of 
human  reason.  As  to  the  former,  a  notion  long 
prevailed  that  revelation  consists  chiefly  in  a  body 
of  doctrines  incomprehensible  by  reason,  therefore 
unacceptable  to  reason,  possessing  no  self-evidenc- 
ing or  self-commending  power,  needing  therefore 
an  elaborate  apparatus  of  external  evidences,  chiefly 
miracles,  to  give  them  a  chance  of  acceptance.  This 
was  the  view  generally  adopted  by  the  older 
apologists.  One  of  its  ablest  and  best-known 
exponents  and  advocates  was  Dean  Mansel,  who,  in 
his  Bampton  Lectures  on  The  Limits  of  Religious 
Thought,  employed  the  Hamiltonian  philosophy  of 
the  Conditioned  for  the  defence  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  The  position  that  philosophy  led  him  to 
take  up  was  something  like  this.  Recognising  that 
certain  doctrines  deduced  by  theologians  from  Scrip- 
ture— such  as  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  the 
Atonement,  Eternal  Punishment  —  were  open  to 
cavil  from  the  point  of  view  of  reason,  he  inter- 
dicted criticism  on  the  plea  that  the  metaphysical 
and  the  moral  nature  of  the  absolute  Being  are  both 
alike  beyond  human  ken.  The  doctrines  of  atone- 


MODERN  DUALISM  355 

ment  and  eternal  punishment,  e.g.,  might  appear 
very  liable  to  objection  on  ethical  grounds ;  but  we 
must  remember  that  the  absolute  morality  of  God 
must  be  very  different  from  the  relative  morality 
of  men,  and  that  therefore  we  may  not  presume  to 
comprehend  or  judge  divine  action,  but  with  the 
meekness  of  an  uncomprehending  faith  accept  what 
from  reason's  point  of  view  appears  revolting.  It 
was  not  to  be  expected  that  this  way  of  silencing 
objectors  by  the  bugbear  of  the  Absolute  would  pass 
unchallenged.  Troublesome  questions  were  sure  to 
be  asked.  There  is,  it  seems,  an  absolute  morality 
whose  nature  we  cannot  know.  If  we  cannot  know 
the  nature  of  such  morality,  how  do  we  know  that 
it  exists  ?  By  revelation  ?  But  how  can  we  be  sure 
that  it  is  revelation?  If  the  morality  ascribed  to 
God  in  the  Bible  presents  itself  to  our  moral  nature 
as  immorality,  can  we  help  rejecting  it  as  a  false 
representation  ?  And  if  we  are  asked  to  distinguish 
between  the  aspect  under  which  God  is  presented 
to  us  in  Scripture  and  the  real  truth  of  His  Being, 
between  what  He  is  in  Himself  and  what  He  would 
have  us  think  of  Him,  can  this  properly  be  called 
revelation?  How  much  better  to  give  up  pretend- 
ing to  know  God  either  through  reason  or  through 
revelation,  and  settle  down  in  the  conviction  that 
the  Being  philosophers  call  the  Infinite  and  the 
Absolute  is  altogether  unknowable  !  So  the  agnostic 
apologetic  of  Mansel  was  likely  to  end.  So  it  did 


356  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

end.  The  relative  agnosticism  of  the  disciple  of 
Hamilton  landed  in  the  absolute  agnosticism  of 
Herbert  Spencer  and  Leslie  Stephen,  who  employed 
the  weapons  put  into  their  hands  by  the  theologian 
to  undermine  and  subvert  the  foundations  of  all 
possible  theology.  The  sooner  this  spurious  apolo- 
getic was  swept  away  the  better,  for  we  are  worse  off 
with  it  than  with  the  modicum  of  knowledge  con- 
cerning God  allowed  us  by  the  philosophy  of  Kant. 
While  denying  access  to  God  to  the  theoretic  reason, 
Kant  held  a  Divine  Moral  Governor  to  be  a  neces- 
sary postulate  of  the  practical  reason.  This  view 
implies  that  God's  moral  nature  is  essentially  the 
same  as  man's ;  that  God  is  interested  in  righteous- 
ness in  the  sense  in  which  we  understand  it,  and  will 
use  His  power  to  promote  its  ascendency.  Mansel, 
on  the  contrary,  represents  our  ideas  of  God  even 
on  the  moral  side  as  anthropomorphic  and  unreal. 
God's  righteousness,  for  anything  we  know,  may 
be  something  very  like  what  we  should  account 
unrighteousness.  Kant's  view  is  decidedly  the  more 
wholesome  and  acceptable.  With  such  knowledge 
as  he  allows  concerning  God  we  could  be  content 
to  remain  in  ignorance  as  to  His  metaphysical 
nature.  It  is  on  the  moral  side  that  knowledge  of 
God  is  urgently  needed,  and,  if  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that  on  that  side  God  is  like  man,  I  know 
where  I  am  and  what  I  have  to  expect.  The  belief 
that  the  human  and  the  divine  are  essentially  one  in 


MODERN  DUALISM  357 

the  moral  sphere  is  the  very  light  of  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  extend  the  shadow  of  the  absolute  into 
the  moral  world  by  proclaiming  that  morality  is 
not  the  same  thing  in  essence  for  God  and  for  man, 
and  you  envelop  human  life  in  midnight  darkness, 
and  leave  us  without  God  and  without  hope.  Faith 
in  any  so-called  revealed  truth  which  really  implies 
the  contrary  is  impossible.  In  such  a  case  faith  can 
only  be  feigning,  make-believe. 

The  alleged  antagonism  between  reason  and  faith 
is  further  based  in  part  on  disparagement  of  reason. 
The  commonplaces  here  are  :  the  pride  of  reason, 
its  aversion  to  mystery,  its  reluctance  to  receive  as 
truth  whatever  exceeds  its  comprehension.  It  is 
possible  to  quote  with  plausibility  in  support  of  such 
depreciatory  reflections  the  Apostle  Paul,  as  when 
he  writes,  *  The  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God :  for  they  are  foolishness  unto 
him :  neither  can  he  know  them,  because  they  are 
spiritually  discerned.'1  But  the  expression  rendered 
the  natural  man  does  not  mean  the  rational  or 
reasonable  man  ;  it  signifies  the  psychical  man,  the 
man,  i.e.  who  is  under  the  dominion  of  the  lower 
animal  soul,  instead  of  the  higher  reasonable  soul, 
the  spirit.  The  natural  man  is  one  who  is  in  bond- 
age to  passion,  instead  of  being  under  the  free 
guidance  of  enlightened  reason.  The  contrast 
suggested  is  analogous  to  that  indicated  in  another 

1  I  Corinthians  ii.  14. 


358  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Pauline  text:  'With  the  mind  I  serve  the  law  oi 
God,  but  with  the  flesh  the  law  of  sin.'1  The  mind 
that  serves  the  law  of  God  will  not  be  shut  to  the 
truth  of  God.  And  this  service  to  divine  law,  and 
this  openness  to  divine  truth,  are  in  accordance  with 
the  true  nature  of  man  as  a  rational  and  moral 
being.  The  '  psychical '  man  is  not  man  in  his  true 
normal  nature.  He  is  psychical  because  he  is  not 
man  enough,  because  he  is  more  of  the  brute  than 
of  the  man.  In  so  far  as  he  is  unspiritual,  neither 
knowing  nor  valuing  the  things  of  the  spirit,  he  is 
irrational.  For,  be  it  carefully  noted,  it  is  a  purely 
arbitrary  conception  of  reason  which  regards  the 
ethical  and  the  spiritual  as  lying  wholly  outside  its 
sphere.  Reason,  morality,  and  religion  are  but 
different  phases  of  the  one  essential  nature  of 
man — of  that  which  constitutes  the  distinctively 
human.  And  these  three  are  one ;  they  imply  each 
other  and  cannot  exist  separate  from  each  other. 
'Thought/  it  has  been  well  said,  'may  for  certain 
purposes  abstract  rational  intelligence  from  moral 
character.  But,  in  fact,  there  is  no  such  thing  in 
human  experience  as  rational  intelligence  by  itself; 
rational  intelligence  that  is  not  the  intelligence  of  a 
moral  person  ;  that  has  not,  therefore,  inseparably 
from  its  rational  existence  and  activity,  a  moral 
character.  Neither  can  there  exist  any  moral  which 
has  not  also  a  rational  aspect  and  character.  There 

1  Romans  vii.  25. 


MODERN  DUALISM  359 

is  no  such  thing  as  a  non-moral  rational.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  non-rational  moral.'1  In  the 
same  way  it  may  be  maintained  that  spiritual  insight 
and  appreciation  presuppose  morality  and  rationality. 
It  is  the  pure  in  heart  that  see  God.  And  seeing 
means  knowing,  thinking  true,  wise,  worthy  thoughts 
of  God — the  highest  function  of  the  faculty  of  reason. 

In  the  exercise  of  this  function  reason  may  become 
unduly  elated.  Divine  philosophy  may  be  lifted  up 
with  pride,  and  through  pride  fall  into  foolish  pre- 
sumption. But  reason  is  not  the  only  thing  that  is 
exposed  to  this  danger.  There  is  a  pride  of  morality 
and  a  pride  of  spirituality  as  well  as  a  pride  of 
reason.  The  righteous  man  and  the  saint  have  need 
to  be  on  their  guard  not  less  than  the  philosopher. 
Each,  through  pride,  may  be  led  into  the  devious 
paths  of  false  judgment.  The  complacent  righteous 
man  despises  his  fellow-men ;  the  *  saint,'  in  the 
proud  consciousness  of  his  spirituality,  looks  down 
with  contempt  on  the  world  ;  the  philosopher,  in 
self-reliant  arrogance,  may  be  unduly  agnostic,  or 
unduly  gnostic,  either  sceptically  reducing  that  which 
may  be  known  of  God  to  zero,  or  presumptuously 
affirming  that  there  is  nothing  which  may  not  be 
known  through  and  through,  and  that  whatever  can- 
not be  so  known  has  no  reality.  All  mystery,  or 
nothing  mysterious  :  such  are  the  two  extremes. 

Reason  as   such  has   no  inherent   inclination    to 

1  R.  C.  Moberly,  Reason  and  Religion,  p.  17. 


36o  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

assume  so  presumptuous  an  attitude.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  thoroughly  reasonable  to  recognise  limits 
to  the  ken  of  reason.  And  in  regard  to  that  which 
presents  an  aspect  of  mystery  to  human  thought, 
reason  may  be  divided  in  its  sympathies.  By  the 
metaphysical  side  of  the  mystery  it  may  be  repelled, 
by  the  moral  side  it  may  be  attracted.  Take  the 
idea  of  incarnation  as  an  illustration.  That  idea  is 
not  wholly  repugnant  to  philosophic  reason.  On 
the  metaphysical  side  it  may  appear  to  involve  an 
impossibility — the  finite  taking  into  itself  the  infinite. 
But  on  the  moral  side  it  offers  compensating  attrac- 
tions: God  not  dwelling  apart  in  solitary  majesty, 
enjoying  his  own  felicity  indifferent  to  man's  destiny, 
but  sharing  in  the  sorrows  of  humanity,  a  hero  in 
the  strife.  In  virtue  of  its  innate  affinity  with 
morality,  reason  can  appreciate  that  conception.  The 
reason  of  the  Aryan  race  especially  takes  kindly  to 
it.  It  loves  to  think  of  God  as  immanent  rather 
than  as  transcendent.  Its  tendency,  as  Professor 
Tiele  in  his  Gifford  Lectures  has  pointed  out,1  is 
theanthropic,  as  distinct  from  that  of  the  Semitic 
mind,  which  is  theocratic ;  whence  it  comes  that 
apotheosis  and  incarnation  find  frequent  recognition 
a*nd  exemplification  in  Aryan  religions. 

In  spite,  however,  of  all  that  one  may  say  in 
defence  of  reason  against  plausible  but  ill-founded 
charges,  men  will  persist  in  ascribing  to  it,  in  refer- 

1  Elements  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  part  i.  pp.  156,  166. 


MODERN  DUALISM  361 

cnce  to  things  divine,  an  intractableness  analogous 
to  that  ascribed  by  ancient  philosophers  to  matter. 
Reason  on  this  view  is  one  of  the  chief  obstructives 
to  the  work  of  God  as  the  Maker  of  the  spiritual 
world.  Its  anti-divine  bias  is  as  inveterate  as  that 
of  Satan.  It  cannot  be  converted ;  it  can  only  be 
curbed  and  put  in  chains,  so  that  its  power  for  mis- 
chief may  be  as  restricted  as  possible.  And  what 
are  the  chains  by  which  it  is  to  be  bound  ?  Miracles 
and  fears  of  eternal  loss  have  been  tried,  but  the 
fetters  most  in  fashion  for  the  present  are  those  of 
authority— the  authority  of  the  past  or  of  custom, 
or  the  authority  of  the  Church.  There  is  a  con- 
spiracy on  the  part  of  many  who  underestimate 
reason's  power  to  find  God,  and  reduce  to  a  minimum 
that  which  may  be  known  of  God  independently  of 
ecclesiastical  illumination,  to  reinstate  the  Church  in 
mediaeval  dominion  in  matters  of  faith  and  practice. 
In  reference  to  this  portentous  reaction  it  has  been 
well  remarked :  '  It  is  devout  agnosticism  that  to-day 
is  becoming  the  mother  of  a  menacing  institu- 
tionalism  that  is  exerting  itself  to  instal  over  the  re- 
ligious mind  extreme  high-churchism.  Let  it  be 
understood  that  the  movement  originates  and  derives 
all  its  vigour  from  the  acknowledged  incompetency 
of  the  moral  reason  of  man  to  fix  the  object  of  his 
worship,  and  Protestants  will  see  the  alternative  that 
divides  the  field  against  them  with  Atheism.'1 

1  G.  Gordon,  Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy  (Boston,  1897),  p.  69. 


362  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Now,  with  reference  to  the  claims  of  authority 
under  all  aspects,  traditional,  social,  or  ecclesiastical, 
let  it  be  at  once  frankly  admitted  that  much  that  is 
true,  useful,  and  wholesome  can  be  said  by  way  of 
asserting  its  legitimacy,  necessity,  and  vast  extent. 
But  care  should  be  taken  that  it  be  not  said  to 
the  prejudice  of  reason.  When  we  find  reason  and 
authority  pitted  against  each  other,  and  the  praise 
of  authority  descanted  on  in  a  manner  that  sets 
reason  by  contrast  in  an  unfavourable  light,  our 
suspicions  are  awakened,  and  we  cannot  help 
feeling  that  an  attempt  is  being  made,  doubtless 
in  all  good  faith,  to  give  to  authority  in  religion 
a  place  and  power  to  which  it  is  not  entitled, 
and  which,  if  conceded,  would  bear  disastrous 
fruit.  A  tendency  in  this  direction  may  be  dis- 
covered in  all  statements  to  the  effect  that  the 
influence  of  reason  in  the  production  of  belief 
is  trifling  compared  with  the  'all-prevailing  in- 
fluence emanating  from  authority,'  and  that  the 
fact  is  no  cause  for  regret,  inasmuch  as  reason 
'is  a  force  most  apt  to  divide  and  disintegrate; 
and  though  division  and  disintegration  may  often 
be  the  necessary  preliminaries  of  social  develop- 
ment, still  more  necessary  are  the  forces  which 
bind  and  stiffen,  without  which  there  would  be  no 
society  to  develop/ l 

Such  language  indicates  heavy  bias,  and  is  very 

1  A.  J.  Balfour,  The  Foundations  of  Belief  ,  pp.  228,  229. 


MODERN  DUALISM  363 

provocative  of  criticism.  Take,  e.g.,  the  representa- 
tion of  the  influence  of  reason,  compared  with  that 
of  authority,  as  insignificant.  This  is  a  very  super- 
ficial judgment,  all  the  more  misleading  that  it  wears 
an  aspect  of  truth.  It  may  with  great  plausibility 
be  maintained  that  the  great  mass  of  our  beliefs  and 
actions  rest  on  authority  or  custom.  Yet,  quite 
compatibly  with  the  admission  of  this  contention,  it 
might  be  asserted  that,  after  all,  reason  is  the  more 
important  and  even  the  mightier  factor.  Reason 
like  the  word  or  Logos  of  God,  is  'quick  and  power- 
ful/ as  the  tiny  acorn  out  of  which  the  great  forest 
oak  grows.  The  analogy  of  seed  or  of  buds  helps 
us  to  grasp  the  real  significance  of  reason,  as  may 
be  seen  from  the  following  sentences  taken  from  a 
recent  work  by  an  American  writer,  entitled  Evolu- 
tion and  Religion.  'Seeds  have  not  much  bulk,  but 
the  potentialities  of  the  world  are  in  them.  The 
buds  of  a  tree  are  but  a  small  portion  of  its  entire 
mass,  yet  they  alone  are  the  significant  parts.  All 
has  been  built  up  in  due  order  by  them.  The 
thoughts  of  men,  as  swayed  by  reason  and  recon- 
structed under  it,  are  the  intellectually  vital  points 
in  the  spiritual  world.  Here  it  is  that  human  life 
takes  on  new  forms,  new  powers,  new  promise. 
Reason  leaves  behind  it  a  great  deal  of  authority — 
as  the  succulent  bud  deposits  woody  fibre — but  no 
authority  goes  before  it.  Evolution  is  always 
directing  our  attention  to  the  next  significant 


364  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

change ;  and  that  is  sure  to  be,  in  the  spiritual 
world,  the  fresh  product  of  thought.' x 

The  reference  to  evolution  in  the  last  sentence  of 
this  extract  reminds  us  of  the  part  played  in  the 
evolutionary  process  by  the  complementary  forces 
of  variation  and  heredity.  Both  of  these  are  alike 
necessary  to  the  process,  and  no  scientist  would 
think  of  indulging  in  a  one-sided  partiality  for  either 
of  them  as  against  the  other.  We  do  not  find  in 
any  scientific  book  such  statements  as  this :  '  Varia- 
tion is  no  doubt  necessary,  but  much  more  necessary 
is  heredity.'  Why,  then,  should  we  find  in  works 
on  the  foundations  of  religious  beliefs  such  biassed 
observations  as  this :  '  Reason  is  doubtless  needful, 
but  still  more  indispensable  is  authority'?  Why 
not  put  them  on  a  level,  viewing  reason  as  the 
analogue  of  variation,  and  authority  as  the  analogue 
of  heredity  ?  Why  set  up  between  them  an  invidious 
antagonism?  Why  not  rather  conceive  them  as 
counterbalancing  forces  serving  the  same  purpose 
in  the  spiritual  world  as  the  centrifugal  and  centri- 
petal forces  in  the  planetary  system  ? 

It  may  indeed  be  deemed  a  sufficient  justifica- 
tion of  prejudice  against  reason  that  its  tendency  is 
to  divide  and  disintegrate.  That  fresh  prophetic 
thought  does  always  act  more  or  less  in  this  manner 
is  not  to  be  denied.  But  what  if  it  has  more  of  this 
work  to  do  than  there  is  any  need  for,  just  because 

1  John  Bascom,  Evolution  and  Religion^  pp.  100,  101. 


MODERN  DUALISM  365 

of  the  prevalence  in  undue  measure  of  an  unreason- 
ing partiality  for  authority  and  custom  ?  '  Have 
any  of  the  rulers  or  of  the  Pharisees  believed  on 
him?'  No,  and  just  on  that  account  the  rejected 
one  came,  in  spite  of  himself,  to  send  not  peace  but 
a  sword.  Do  not  throw  all  the  blame  on  the  pro- 
phetic thinker.  Perhaps  he  is  not  to  blame  at  all, 
but  is  simply  the  man  who  happens  to  see  clearly 
the  truth  the  time  needs,  and  to  have  the  sincerity 
and  courage  necessary  for  proclaiming  it.  In  any 
case,  do  not  lay  the  whole  burden  of  blame  on  his 
shoulders ;  let  him  share  it  with  the  man  who  sets 
an  overweening  value  on  custom.  It  takes  two  to 
make  a  quarrel :  the  man  who  wishes  the  world  to 
move  on,  and  not  less  the  man  who  wants  the  world 
to  stand  still. 

It  is  when  we  look  at  the  question  at  issue  in  the 
light  of  a  great  crisis  like  the  birth  of  the  Christian 
religion,  that  we  see  what  a  serious  thing  it  may  be 
to  lean  too  heavily  in  our  sympathies  to  the  side  of 
authority.  If  those  who  do  this  now,  in  our  nine- 
teenth century,  possibly  in  lauded  attempts  to  sup- 
port the  Christian  faith  as  an  established  system  of 
belief,  had  lived  in  the  first,  what  would  have  been 
their  attitude?  Would  they  have  been  with  Jesus 
or  against  Him?  It  might  be  invidious  to  offer  a 
direct  answer  to  this  question ;  but  something  may 
be  learned  from  the  behaviour  of  the  friends  of 
authority  among  contemporary  Jews.  We  may  fail 


366  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  see  the  moral,  because  Jesus  is  now  for  Christians 
the  ultimate  authority  in  religion.  But  Jesus  did 
not,  in  His  time,  represent  the  principle  of  authority 
in  the  sense  under  discussion.  He  represented 
rather  the  principle  of  prophetic  vision,  of  fresh  re- 
ligious intuition,  of  devout  reason  acting  within  the 
spiritual  sphere.  He  spake  with  moral  authority,  not 
by  authority  of  the  legal,  institutional,  traditional 
type.  He  appealed  from  the  schools  to  the  human 
soul,  and  spake  from  the  heart  to  the  heart  truth 
carrying  its  own  credentials,  and  needing,  as  little 
as  it  enjoyed,  backing  from  custom  or  Rabbinical 
opinion.  The  common  people  heard  him  gladly. 
Not  so  the  supporters  of  authority.  It  is  not  their 
way  to  espouse  any  cause  when  it  has  nothing  but 
reason,  spiritual  insight,  and  intrinsic  truth  on  its 
side.  They  wait  till  the  new  has  become  old  and 
customary,  and  the  little  flock  a  large  influential 
community.  Their  patronage  at  that  stage  may  in 
some  ways  be  serviceable ;  but  one  cannot  forget 
that,  but  for  the  existence  of  some  who  were  open 
to  other  influences  than  those  of  authority,  there 
never  would  have  been  any  Christianity  to  patronise. 
And  what  were  these  other  influences?  Does 
reason  comprehend  them  all?  Yes,  if  you  take 
reason  in  a  sufficiently,  yet  not  unjustifiably,  large 
sense.  In  the  antithesis  between  reason  and  autho- 
rity we  are  entitled  to  include  under  reason  all  that 
is  usually  found  opposed  to  authority  in  critical 


MODERN  DUALISM  367 

periods,  new  eras,  creative  times,  and  gives  to  the 
prophet  his  opportunity  of  gaining  disciples — healthy 
moral  instincts,  affinity  for  fundamental  spiritual 
truth,  openness  to  the  inspirations  of  God.  The 
antithesis,  in  short,  is  essentially  identical  with  that 
taken  by  our  Lord,  in  reference  to  Peter's  faith,  at 
Caesarea  Philippi,  between  *  flesh  and  blood  '  and  the 
revelation  of  the  Father  in  Heaven.  It  is  therefore 
a  hopelessly  inadequate  view  of  reason  which  reduces 
it  to  a  faculty  of  reasoning  having  arguments  as  its 
sole  instruments  for  producing  conviction.1  It  is 
before  all  things  a  faculty  of  seeing  with  the  spiritual 
eye  of  an  enlightened  understanding,2  and  of  receiv- 
ing truth  seen  with  a  pure  heart.  The  Bible  is  the 
literary  product  and  inestimable  monument  of  this 
rare,  precious  gift.  It  is  a  divine  protest  against 
the  domination  of  custom  and  authority  in  religion. 
Prophets  and  apostles  were  all  in  a  state  of  revolt, 
in  the  interest  of  personal  inspiration,  against  the 
brute  force  of  a  traditional  belief  at  whose  hands 
they  all  more  or  less  suffered.  Defences  of  Biblical 
religion  by  idolaters  of  authority  are  simply  tombs 
built  in  honour  of  men  whom  kindred  spirits  in  their 
lifetime  persecuted  and  killed.  If  any  one  should 
be  startled  at  the  close  affinity  between  human 
reason  and  divine  inspiration  implied  in  these  state- 
ments, it  may  be  well  to  remind  him  that  the 

1  Mr.  Balfout  seems  to  take  reason  in  this  narrow  sense.     Vide  The 
Foundations  of  Belief  ,  p.  212.  2  Ephesians  i.  18. 


368  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

common  antithesis  between  reason  and  faith  is  un- 
known to  Scripture.1 

We  pass  now  to  the  third  charge  against  reason, 
that,  viz.,  of  being  a  rebel  against  God's  will  con- 
ceived as  having  for  its  aim  the  moral  and  social 
progress  of  mankind.  It  was  reserved  for  the  author 
of  Social  Evolution  to  bring  this  charge  in  the 
most  explicit  and  uncompromising  terms.  Mr.  Kidd 
leaves  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  his  meaning,  though  it 
is  difficult  on  a  first  reading  of  his  book,  or  even  a 
second,  to  make  up  one's  mind  that  his  statements 
are  to  be  taken  in  earnest  His  position,  in  short, 
is  that  reason  cares  only  for  the  present  interest  of 
the  individual,  not  at  all  for  the  interest  of  society 
or  of  the  remote  future.  The  teaching  of  reason 
to  the  individual  must  always,  he  thinks,  be  'that 
the  present  time  and  his  own  interests  therein  are 
all-important  to  him/2  In  startlingly  strong  lan- 
guage he  describes  reason  as  'the  most  profoundly 
individualistic,  anti-social,  and  anti-evolutionary  of 
all  human  qualities.'8  Thus  it  results  that  man, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  merely  rational,  is  a  selfish 
animal,  who  uses  his  reason  as  an  instrument  en- 
abling him  more  cleverly  than  other  animals  to 
gratify  his  desires.  Fortunately  for  the  interests 
of  society  and  of  human  progress,  man  is  not  merely 
rational ;  he  is  also  religious.  Religion  supplies  the 

1  Vide  Moberly,  Reason  and  Religion,  p.  85. 

1  Social  Evolution,  p.  78.  *  Ibid.,  p.  293. 


MODERN  DUALISM  369 

antidote  to  the  egoistic  tendency  of  reason  ;  it  works 
for  the  good  of  society,  making  the  religious  man 
willing  to  sacrifice  his  own  interest  for  the  benefit  of 
the  community,  in  spite  of  reason's  constant  counsel 
to  care  solely  for  himself.  It  follows  from  this,  of 
course,  that  religion  and  reason  have  nothing  in 
common.  They  are  necessarily  antagonistic  in 
nature  as  in  tendency.  Reason  is  irreligious,  and 
religion  is  irrational.  This  also  is  plainly  declared. 
'  A  rational  religion/  we  are  informed,  '  is  a  scientific 
impossibility,  representing  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  an  inherent  contradiction  of  terms.' l  Religion 
has  neither  its  source  nor  its  sanction  in  reason  ; 
its  doctrines  are  supernatural,  and  its  sanctions  ultra- 
rational.  And  these  two  powers  are  constantly  at 
war  with  each  other.  The  social  organism  is  the 
scene  of  an  incessant  conflict  between  a  disintegrat- 
ing principle  '  represented  by  the  rational  self-asser- 
tiveness  of  the  individual  units/  and  an  integrating 
principle  '  represented  by  a  religious  belief  providing 
a  sanction  for  social  conduct  which  is  always  of 
necessity  ultra-rational,  and  the  function  of  which 
is  to  secure  in  the  stress  of  evolution  the  continual 
subordination  of  the  interest  of  the  individual  units 
to  the  larger  interests  of  the  longer-lived  social 
organism  to  which  they  belong.'2 

What  a  revolting,  incredible   account  of  human 
nature  and  of  human  society !    Mr.  Kidd's  view  is  not 

1  Vide  Social  Evolution,  p.  101.  2  Ibid.,  p.  102. 

2  A 


370  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

caricatured  when  it  is  graphically  depicted  in  these 
terms :  '  Reason  a  sort  of  more-thah-animal  clever- 
ness, of  purely  selfish  animal  cunning;  social  morality, 
the  demand  upon  individuals  to  sacrifice  themselves 
and  their  reason  for  the  sake  of  the  community; 
and  religion  as  a  sort  of  non-rational  bogey-police- 
man coming  in  to  enforce  the  non- rational  demand 
of  society.'1  One  would  be  justified  in  stubbornly 
refusing  to  surrender  to  such  a  libellous  misrepre- 
sentation, even  though  he  found  himself  unable  to 
refute  in  detail  the  subtle  and  plausible  argumenta- 
tion based  on  false  assumptions ;  saying  as  he  laid 
down  the  book,  'Very  able,  unanswerable  at  least 
by  me  for  the  moment,  yet  utterly  unconvincing.' 

This  modern  scheme  of  social  evolution  involves  a 
veritable  dualism — a  double  dualism  indeed.  There 
is  first  a  psychological  dualism,  a  constant  deadly 
warfare  in  man  between  his  reason  and  his  religious 
instincts.  This  is  a  dualism  unknown  to  Greek 
philosophers  and  Christian  apostles,  who  knew  of  a 
conflict  between  flesh  and  spirit,  but  never  dreamed 
of  reason  and  religion  being  deadly  foes.  Plato 
and  Paul  would  have  said :  the  more  rational  the 
more  religious,  and  the  more  religious  the  more 
rational.  Then  there  is  a  latent  theological  dualism, 
an  antagonism  between  the  gods  who  are  the  objects 
of  worship  in  the  various  religions  and  the  reason 
of  their  worshippers.  For  the  gods,  at  least  the 

1  Moberly,  Reason  and  Religion,  p.  4. 


MODERN  DUALISM  371 

gods  of  religions  which  happen  to  have  a  whole- 
some, humane,  ethical  ideal,  desire  the  moral  and 
social  progress  of  mankind,  and  use  religion  to 
promote  that  end.  And  reason  constantly  and 
strenuously  resists  the  divine  goodwill — resists  with 
such  persistency  and  passion  that  religion  must 
be  provided  with  the  awful  sanctions  of  eternal 
penalties  to  give  it  a  chance  of  keeping  reason  in 
a  due  state  of  subordination. 

As  is  usually  the  case  with  theories  of  the  un- 
answerable yet  unconvincing  type,  the  weakness  of 
Mr.  Kidd's  position  lies  in  his  initial  assumptions, 
which  are  that  reason  is  inherently  selfish,  and  re- 
ligion inherently  non- rational.  Neither  of  these 
assertions  is  true.  Reason  is  not  inherently  selfish. 
Reason  may  indeed  be  used  for  selfish  purposes  by 
men  in  whose  nature  animal  passion  predominates. 
But  that  is  not  the  proper  function  of  reason  free 
to  work  according  to  its  own  nature ;  it  is  the  abuse 
of  its  powers  when  in  a  state  of  degradation  and 
bondage.  Man,  in  so  far  as  he  is  rational,  is  also 
social.  Sociality  is  not  a  thing  imposed  on  man 
from  without  and  reluctantly  submitted  to  by  his 
reason.  It  is  an  essential  element  of  human  nature, 
without  which  a  man  would  not  be  a  man,  and 
reason  readily  acknowledges  its  claims.  It  is  rational 
to  care  for  others,  and  for  this  generation  to  care 
for  future  generations,  as  parents  care  that  it  may 
be  well  with  their  children  after  their  decease.  We 


372  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

do  not  need  to  be  religious,  still  less  to  be  under 
the  influence  of  ultra-rational  religious  sanctions, 
to  perceive  the  reasonableness  of  altruism  or  the 
nobleness  of  self-sacrifice.  Heroism,  self-devotion, 
is  latent  in  every  man.  It  has  been  truly  said  that 
'the  service  of  society  is  not,  as  Mr.  Kidd  assumes, 
the  sacrifice  of  the  individual :  it  is  his  gratification 
and  realisation.  Though  labour  leaders  and  social- 
istic agitators  usually  appeal  to  selfishness,  yet  it 
is  not  the  selfishness  of  the  working  men,  it  is  their 
nobleness,  their  fidelity  to  what  they  believe  to  be 
a  principle,  their  loyalty  to  their  order  or  union,  or 
class,  which  responds  to  these  appeals,  and  gives 
to  strikes  and  labour  movements  whatever  strength 
they  have.  It  is  not  individualism,  but  a  new 
manifestation  of  the  social  spirit  that  is  blindly 
struggling  for  expression  in  the  labour  movements 
of  our  day.'1 

If  reason  as  such  is  not  selfish,  as  little  is  religion 
as  such  irrational.  Only  by  taking  Mediaeval  Chris- 
tianity as  the  type  can  the  contrary  position  be 
maintained  with  a  show  of  plausibility.  To  form  a 
sound  judgment  of  the  true  relation  of  Christianity 
to  reason,  we  must  study  it  as  it  appears  in  the 
Gospels  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  Do  we  not  all 
feel  the  ' sweet  reasonableness'  of  that  teaching — 

1  W.  De  Witt  Hyde,  Outlines  of  Social  Theology,  .p.  47.  On  the 
social  nature  of  reason,  vide  Lectures  and  Essays  on  Natural  Theology 
and  Ethics,  by  the  late  Professor  Wallace,  edited  by  the  Master  of 
Balliol  College,  Oxford  (1899),  p.  no. 


MODERN  DUALISM  373 

in  its  doctrine  of  God  and  of  man,  and  in  its  ethical 
ideal  ?  Does  it  need  ultra-rational  sanctions  in  the 
shape  of  miracles  or  eternal  fears  to  commend  to 
our  reason  the  Father  in  heaven,  our  filial  relation 
to  that  Father,  and  our  fraternal  obligations  arising 
out  of  our  common  privilege  as  the  sons  of  God? 
Is  it  not  when  our  reason  is  eclipsed,  and  the  baser 
part  of  our  nature  is  in  the  ascendant,  that  the  self- 
evidencing,  self-commending  power  of  these  truths 
becomes  obscured  and  the  need  for  appeals  to  our 
superstitious  fears  arises  ? 

Mr.  Kidd's  conception  of  religion  is  doubtless  in 
harmony  with  a  widely  prevalent  religious  mood, 
manifesting  itself  in  the  portentous  combination  of 
agnosticism  with  traditionalism  previously  spoken 
of.  This  consideration  only  makes  it  more  in- 
cumbent on  every  man  to  be  fully  persuaded  in 
his  own  mind,  and  to  speak  out  his  mind  with  all 
possible  plainness.  My  own  view  is  this  :  Mediaeval- 
ism,  Sacerdotalism,  is  opposed  to  reason,  but  not 
true  religion,  not  genuine  Christianity.  Mediaeval- 
ism  is  a  caricature  of  Christianity,  as  much  so  as 
Rabbinism  was  a  caricature  of  the  religion  of  the 
prophets.  The  power  of  Christianity  lies  not  in 
the  fear  of  hell,  or  even  in  the  hope  of  heaven,  but 
in  the  intrinsic  credibility  of  the  truths  it  teaches ; 
in  the  words  of  wisdom  and  of  grace  spoken  by 
Jesus,  which,  with  Paul,  we  feel  to  be  credible 
sayings  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation.  I  trust  what 


374  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

is  before  us  in  the  future  is  not  a  return  to  the 
Middle  Ages,  but  a  better  acquaintance  with,  and 
a  growing  appreciation  of,  the  Galilaean  gospel. 
Therein  lies,  I  believe,  the  true  ground  of  hope  for 
social  progress. 

It  is  certainly  hard  to  see  how  such  a  hope  can 
be  based  on  an  external  power  brought  to  bear  on 
man's  nature  forcing  it  into  a  line  of  action  with 
which  it  has  no  affinity.  This  conception  of  com- 
pulsory goodness  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
Biblical  view  of  man's  relation  to  divine  influence. 
The  Bible  presents  a  sombre  picture  of  man's  natural 
condition  as  vitiated  by  a  depraving  process  from 
which  human  reason  has  not  been  exempted.  But 
nowhere  do  we  meet  with  the  idea  that,  purely  by 
the  constraining  force  of  religion  appealing  to  their 
fears,  men  can  be  compelled  to  seek  the  good  of 
their  fellows  contrary  to  their  own  permanent  in- 
clination. Scriptural  theology  saves  itself  from  this 
crudity  by  its  doctrine  of  regeneration,  or  of  a  moral 
renewal  bringing  with  it  a  new  heart  delighting  to 
do  God's  will  and  a  clarified  reason  in  sympathy 
with  the  true  and  the  good.  Modern  philosophers 
may  have  their  own  ideas  as  to  the  possibility  of 
such  a  change  ;  but  it  will  not  be  denied  that  if 
the  alleged  renewal  be  possible  it  provides  within 
man  something  to  which  religion,  duty,  social  obliga- 
tion can  appeal  and  on  which  they  can  work,  some- 
thing akin  to  the  moral  law  and  the  divine  purpose 


MODERN  DUALISM  375 

— a  mind  approving  the  right,  a  heart  loving  to  do 
it.  The  doctrine  indeed  implies  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  the  kind  even  in  irregenerate  man,  a  germ 
of  the  divine,  and  of  the  humane,  of  what  is  now 
called  altruism,  dormant  in  the  soul  and  capable  of 
being  quickened  into  active,  vigorous  life.  And  the 
very  existence  of  the  doctrine  implies  that,  in  the 
view  of  those  who  taught  it,  nothing  can  be  made 
of  man  until  his  own  rational  and  moral  nature  has 
been  brought  into  a  state  of  sympathy  with  the 
good,  that  he  cannot  be  compelled  into  doing  the 
right  by  threats  or  the  most  awful  penal  sanctions. 
This,  indeed,  as  is  well  known,  is  the  plain  teaching 
of  Scripture  in  both  Testaments.  It  finds  expression 
in  Jeremiah's  oracle  of  the  New  Covenant,  with  its 
great  thought  of  the  law  written  on  the  heart  as 
distinct  from  the  law  written  on  stone  tablets,  and 
remaining  a  dead  letter  because  written  there  alone. 
St.  Paul  caught  up  the  prophetic  idea  and  gave  it 
a  further  development,  teaching  that  the  law  with- 
out is  worse  than  a  dead  letter,  even  an  irritant 
to  transgression,  provoking  into  rebellious  reaction, 
rather  than  restraining,  the  evil  principle  within. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  apostle's  doctrine 
is  no  whimsical  exaggeration  but  the  statement  of 
a  fact.  And  if  we  put  religion  in  the  place  of  law 
the  formula  still  holds.  Religion  with  its  penal  sanc- 
tions, without,  powerless  to  make  men  unselfish ; 
rather,  provocative  of  more  violent  manifestations  of 


376  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

selfishness.  Religion  indeed,  so  conceived,  is  simply 
a  law,  as  distinct  from  an  inward  spirit  of  life. 
Religion  as  it  ought  to  be,  as  defined  in  the  Bible, 
means :  loving  God  with  all  the  heart,  and  all  the 
soul,  and  all  the  mind',  in  a  word,  with  all  that  is 
within  us.  Religion,  as  the  supposed  driving-power 
of  social  evolution,  is  an  outward  commandment  to 
be  altruistic  addressed  to  a  stubbornly  non-altruistic 
subject,  with  the  whip  of  an  '  ultra-rational  sanction ' 
held  over  his  head  to  subdue  his  recalcitrant  heart, 
soul,  and  mind  into  sullen  submission.  It  is  an 
affront  to  our  common  sense  to  ask  us  to  see  in 
such  a  slave-driving  invention  the  sole  and  all- 
sufficient  guarantee  for  social  well-being.  Its  utmost 
achievement  would  be  to  induce  moribund  world- 
lings to  bequeath  part  of  their  wealth  for  pious 
uses,  in  hope  thereby  to  save  their  souls  from  per- 
dition. It  never  could  bind  into  a  coherent  social 
brotherhood  a  race  of  men  devoid  of  a  social  nature. 
As  Dr.  Bascom  puts  it :  '  An  altruism  induced,  as  an 
irrational  habit,  on  a  spiritual  nature  alien  to  it, 
could  never  become  the  ground  of  permanent  order. 
The  inner  conflict  uncorrected  would  fret  against 
the  restraints  put  upon  it,  and  might  at  any  moment 
break  out  afresh.  The  spiritual  development,  when 
it  comes,  must  be  supremely  natural.'1 

Perhaps,  if  the  issue  were  thus  clearly  put  before 
him,  the  author  of  Social  Evolution  would  not  care 

1  Evolution  and  Religion ,  pp.  1 1 6,  117. 


MODERN  DUALISM  377 

to  meet  the  position  so  clearly  stated  with  a  direct 
negative.  For  it  has  to  be  borne  in  mind,  in  justice 
to  Mr.  Kidd,  that  he  does  not  credit  every  religion 
with  the  power,  through  its  sanctions,  to  compel  men 
into  involuntary  altruism,  but  only  such  a  religion  as 
Christianity,  which  happens  to  have  a  humane  spirit 
and  an  eminently  social  ethical  ideal.  This  is  in- 
dicated in  the  following  sentences :  '  The  Christian 
religion  possessed  from  the  outset  two  characteristics 
destined  to  render  it  an  evolutionary  force  of  the  first 
magnitude.  The  first  was  the  extraordinary  strength 
of  the  ultra-rational  sanction  it  provided.  .  .  .  The 
second  was  the  nature  of  the  ethical  system  associated 
with  it.' *  It  is  indeed  an  evil  omen  that  he  places  the 
ultra-rational  sanction  first,  as  if  his  chief  reliance 
were  on  its  compulsory  power.  But  one  may  hope 
that  he  would  not  deny  to  the  second  characteristic 
of  Christianity,  its  humane  ethical  ideal,  power  to 
work  on  men  after  its  own  manner,  that  is,  not  as 
a  mere  outward  commandment  saying :  this  is  the 
road  along  which  you  must  go ;  but  as  an  ideal,  by 
its  'sweet  reasonableness'  commending  itself  to  the 
human  soul.  Who  can  doubt  that  it  has  such  power 
when  he  reflects  whence  that  ideal  came  ?  It  had  its 
source  in  the  mind  or  reason  of  Jesus.  Altruism 
was  not  imposed  on  Him  at  least  by  ultra-rational 
sanctions.  He  was  a  friend  of  man  by  nature.  His 
reason  was  not  anti-social  and  individualist,  but 

1  Social  Evolution,  p.  130. 


378  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

emphatically  the  reverse.  Are  we  to  hold  that  in 
this  respect  He  was  utterly  isolated,  the  only  man 
in  the  world  who  in  any  measure  cared  for  others  ? 
How  much  more  credible  that  in  His  spiritual  nature 
was  revealed  the  normal  constitution  of  human 
nature  generally ;  that  He  was  what  all  men  ought 
to  be,  what  all  men  in  some  degree  are,  what  every 
man  is  in  proportion  as  he  is  rational !  If  this  be 
true,  then  the  ethical  ideal  of  Christianity  can,  by 
its  intrinsic  reasonableness,  work  independently  of 
all  supposed  ultra-rational  sanctions.  And  it  is  the 
first  motive-power,  not  the  second.  The  ideal  takes 
precedence  of  the  sanction,  and  can  even  dispense 
with  its  aid.  Without  the  self-commending  ethic, 
the  sanction,  however  tremendous,  is  impotent; 
where  the  power  of  the  ethic  is  felt  the  sanction  is 
unnecessary.  '  The  law  is  not  made  for  a  righteous 
man/ 

Our  main  reliance,  then,  for  social  progress  must 
be  on  '  the  law  written  on  the  heart/  the  law  of  love 
accepted  by  reason  and  enforced  by  conscience. 
Religion  can  reinforce  the  power  of  the  moral  ideal, 
but  it  does  this,  not  chiefly  by  offers  of  future 
rewards  and  threats  of  future  punishments,  but 
by  setting  before  men,  as  the  object  of  faith  and 
worship,  a  God  whose  inmost  nature  is  love.  And 
because  God  is  love,  and  because  man  is  truest  to 
his  own  rational  and  moral  nature  when  he  cares  not 
only  for  his  own  things,  but  for  the  things  of  others, 


MODERN  DUALISM  379 

the  form  of  modern  dualism  which  turns  human 
reason  into  the  enemy  of  God  and  of  the  social  well- 
being  ordained  under  His  benignant  Providence,  may 
be  treated  as  a  bugbear  having  no  terrors  for  those 
who  walk  in  the  daylight  of  truth.  The  unwelcome 
conception  may  be  dismissed  from  the  mind  as  the 
theoretic  exaggeration  of  a  powerful  intellect  re- 
joicing in  its  logical  acumen,  and  accepting  fearlessly 
the  most  startling  results  of  bold  ratiocination,  with- 
out having  sufficiently  considered  the  premises  from 
which  the  ultimate  conclusions  are  drawn.  As  a 
theorist  Mr.  Kidd  is  chargeable  with  great  incon- 
sistency. He  has  made  it  his  chief  business  to 
exhibit  human  reason  to  all  who  desire  social  well- 
being  as  an  object  of  deadly  distrust,  and  in 
performing  this  ungenial  task  he  has  put  unlimited 
confidence  in  his  own  individual  reason  and  its 
powers  of  argumentation.  It  would  have  been  well 
if  he  had  had  a  little  less  faith  in  his  own  logic,  and 
a  little  more  faith  in  the  social  instincts  of  average 
humanity. 


LECTURE  XII 

RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT 

WE  have  come  to  the  end  of  our  pilgrimage  through 
the  ages  in  quest  of  wise,  weighty,  light-giving  words 
concerning  the  moral  order  of  the  world  and  the 
Providence  of  God.  It  remains  now  to  cast  a  fare- 
well glance  backward  and  a  wistful  anticipatory 
glance  forwards,  that  we  may  sum  up  our  gains 
and  fortify  our  hopes. 

Looking  back,  then,  on  the  thought  of  the 
ancients,  we  see  that  the  sages  of  various  lands,  in 
far-past  ages,  unite  in  the  emphatic  assertion  of  a 
Moral  Order  as  the  thing  of  supreme  moment  for 
the  faith  and  life  of  man.  This  message,  handed  on 
from  antiquity,  the  wisest  of  our  own  time  earnestly 
re-affirm,  saying  to  their  contemporaries  in  effect: 
'  Believe  this  and  thou  shalt  live/  The  consensus 
gentium  firmly  supports  this  cardinal  article  in  the 
religious  creed  of  mankind. 

The  consensus  in  favour  of  a  moral  order  is  the 
more  remarkable  that  it  is  associated  with  the 
most  discrepant  theological  positions,  having  for 

880 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  381 

their  respective  watchwords :  no  god  (in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word)  as  in  Buddhism,  two  gods  as  in 
Zoroastrianism,  many  gods  as  in  the  religion  of  the 
Greeks,  one  God  as  in  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews. 
In  view  of  this  theological  diversity,  the  common 
faith  in  an  eternal  august  moral  order  may  be 
regarded  as  the  fundamental  certainty,  the  vital 
element  in  the  religion  of  humanity. 

The  root  of  this  basal  faith  is  an  intense  moral 
consciousness.  Men  believe  in  a  moral  order  in 
the  cosmos,  because  they  have  found  a  commanding 
moral  order  in  their  own  souls.  The  prophets  of 
the  moral  order  on  the  great  scale  —  Buddha, 
Zoroaster,  ^Eschylus,  Zeno,  Isaiah,  Jesus — have  all 
been  conspicuous  by  the  purity  and  intensity  of 
their  own  moral  nature.  In  the  clear  authoritative 
voice  of  conscience  they  have  heard  the  voice  of 
God,  or  of  what  stands  for  God.  It  is  ever  so. 
For  no  man  has  a  moral  order  in  the  universe 
been  a  dread,  awe-inspiring  reality  for  whom  the 
sense  of  duty  has  not  been  the  dominant  feeling 
within  his  own  bosom.  Only  the  pure  in  heart 
see  God — whether  He  be  called  Karma,  Ahura, 
Jove,  Jehovah,  the  Father-in-heaven,  or  by  any 
other  name,  or  remain  nameless.  For  all  others 
the  faith  in  a  moral  purpose  pervading  the  world 
is  but  a  hearsay,  and  all  the  elaborate  theologies 
built  on  that  faith  which  they  profess  to  believe 
are  of  little  account. 


382  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Yet  the  theological  position,  though  secondary, 
is  not  indifferent.  Because  we  see  men  of  all  con- 
ceivable attitudes  towards  the  question  of  God's 
being  concurring  in  a  primary  belief  we  are  not 
to  argue :  *  It  does  not  matter  what  we  believe 
concerning  the  Gods,  whether  that  there  are  none, 
or  that  they  are  two  or  many  or  one,  so  long  as 
we  believe  that  it  goes  well  with  the  righteous 
and  ill  with  the  wicked,  and  join  ourselves  heart 
and  soul  to  the  company  of  the  righteous.'  It 
does  matter.  It  is  well  to  believe  that  there  is  a 
reward  for  the  righteous,  but  it  is  also  well  to 
believe  that  there  is  a  God  who  confers  the  reward. 
We  need  a  theory  of  the  universe  congruous  to 
our  ethical  faith.  It  would  have  been  better  for 
Buddha,  and  for  the  vast  portion  of  the  human 
race  who  confess  his  name,  if  he  had  found  in  the 
universe  a  Being  who  realised  his  own  moral  ideal. 
One  who,  like  Euripides,  admires  self-sacrifice  in 
noble-minded  men  and  women  needs  faith  in  a 
God  who  shares  his  admiration  and  who  is  the 
fountain  of  all  self-sacrificing  love.  Moral  sentiment 
and  theological  theory  act  and  react  on  each  other. 
Our  moral  nature  creates  faith  in  God,  and  faith  in 
God  invigorates  our  moral  nature.  Therefore  it  is 
by  no  means  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  we 
affirm  or  deny  the  being  of  a  God,  or  what  kind 
of  a  God  we  believe  in.  'No  faith'  means  the 
individual  heroically  asserting  his  moral  personality 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  383 

over  against  an  unsympathetic  universe.  'Unworthy 
faith'  means  a  man  divided  against  himself,  his  moral 
nature  asserting  one  thing,  his  religious  nature  hold- 
ing on  to  another,  with  fatal  weakness  in  character 
and  conduct  for  result. 

We  have  seen  that  the  common  faith  in  a  moral 
order  has  been  associated,  not  only  with  diverse 
theological  positions,  but  with  conflicting  judgments 
about  human  life.  In  India  life  appeared  an  un- 
mixed evil,  in  Persia  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  in 
Israel  the  prevailing  tendency  of  religious  thinkers 
was  to  a  more  or  less  decided  optimism,  which  found 
much  good  in  life  and  viewed  the  evil  as  capable  of 
being  transmuted  into  good.  In  each  case  the  mood 
corresponded  to  the  estimate.  The  pessimistic 
Buddhist  was  despairing,  the  dualistic  Zoroastrian 
defiant,  and  the  optimistic  Israelite  cheerfully  trust- 
ful. The  mood  of  the  Greek  also  was  buoyant  and 
joyous,  but  his  gaiety  was  eclipsed  by  the  gloomy 
shadow  of  fate  or  destiny  which  turned  trust  in  a 
wise,  benignant  Providence  into  a  grim  submission 
to  the  inevitable.  It  is  helpful  to  have  it  thus 
conclusively  shown  that  the  faith  in  a  moral  order 
and  the  earnest  moral  temper  congenial  to  it  can 
maintain  themselves  alongside  of  all  conceivable 
moods ;  that  a  Buddhist  with  his  pessimism,  and  a 
Stoic  with  his  apathy,  can  be  as  loyal  to  duty  and 
as  fully  alive  to  the  truth  that  the  ethical  interest 
is  supreme,  as  the  Zoroastrian  with  his  severe  sense 


384  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  the  radical  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  or 
the  Hebrew  with  his  unwavering  faith  in  the  un- 
challengeable sovereignty  of  a  just  God.  Only  we 
must  beware  here  also  of  imagining  that  the  mood 
does  not  matter  so  long  as  the  ethical  spirit  remains. 
The  mood  affects  the  quality  of  the  morality.  The 
Buddhist  at  his  best  is  as  earnest  as  any  one  can 
desire.  He  is  devoted  to  his  moral  ideal  with  a 
fervour  which  few  adherents  of  other  faiths  can 
excel  or  even  equal.  But  his  ideal  takes  its  shape 
from  his  pessimism,  and  under  its  influence  becomes 
such  as  finds  its  proper  home  in  a  monastery.  The 
ethical  fervour  of  the  Stoic  likewise  was  above  re- 
proach, but  his  ideal  also  suffered  under  the  influence 
of  his  characteristic  mood.  If  the  Buddhist  errs  on 
the  side  of  passivity  and  gentleness,  the  Stoic  erred 
on  the  side  of  inhuman  sternness.  Strong  in  the 
pride  of  his  self-sufficiency,  he  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  weak  who  could  not  rise  to  the  height  of 
his  doctrine  that  pain  is  no  evil. 

These  remarks  lead  up  to  the  observation  that  in 
all  the  types  of  ancient  religious  thought  which  have 
come  under  our  consideration  (leaving  Christianity 
for  the  present  out  of  account)  strength  and  weak- 
ness are  curiously  combined.  It  may  be  worth 
while  to  note  the  strong  points  and  the  weak 
points,  respectively,  in  each  case. 

The  strength  of  Buddhism  lies  in  its  gentle  virtues 
and  in  its  firm  faith  in  the  imperious  demands  of 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  385 

Karma  for  a  retributive  moral  order  under  which 
moral  actions  shall  receive  their  appropriate  awards. 
Its  weaknesses  are  numerous.  There  is,  first  of  all, 
the  lack  of  a  religious  ideal  answering  to  its  ethical 
ideal,  what  we  may  call  its  atheism.  Then  there  is 
the  extravagant  form  in  which  it  applies  the  principle 
of  retribution,  viewing  each  good  and  evil  act  by 
itself  and  assigning  to  it  its  appropriate  reward  or 
penalty,  instead  of  regarding  the  conduct  or  character 
of  a  moral  agent  as  a  whole.  To  these  glaring 
defects  must  be  added  the  pessimistic  estimate  of 
life  characteristic  of  the  system,  the  conception  of 
the  summum  bonum  as  consisting  in  Nirvana  or 
the  extinction  of  desire,  and  the  consequent  con- 
viction that  the  only  way  in  which  a  wise  man  can 
worthily  spend  his  days  on  earth  is  by  the  practice 
of  asceticism  within  the  walls  of  a  monastery. 

The  strength  of  Zoroastrianism  lay  in  its  manly, 
militant,  moral  ideal,  and  in  its  devout  belief  in  a 
Divine  Good  Spirit  for  whom  moral  distinctions  are 
real  and  vital,  and  who  is  the  Captain,  the  inspiring, 
strengthening  Leader,  of  all  who  fight  for  good 
against  evil,  as  soldiers  in  the  great  army  of  right- 
eousness. Its  weakness  lay  in  its  dualism,  its  faith  in 
an  antigod,  and  in  its  hard,  abstract,  unsympathetic 
antithesis  between  good  and  evil  men.  The  second 
of  these  two  defects  was  probably  the  true  source  of 
the  first :  the  harsh  Puritanic  ethics  the  fountain  of 
the  crude  theology.  Had  the  Persian  prophet  been 

2B 


386  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

able  to  look  on  those  whom  he  regarded  as  the 
children  of  Ahriman,  even  on  the  neighbouring 
Turanian  nomads,  as  his  brethren,  to  have  thought 
of  them  as  men  and  not  mere  devils,  as  weak  and 
not  absolutely  wicked,  as  having  in  them,  with  all 
their  pravity,  some  rudimentary  possibilities  of 
human  goodness,  and  of  himself  and  others  like- 
minded,  on  the  other  hand,  as  far  enough  from 
spotless  moral  purity,  it  would  have  been  possible 
for  him  to  conceive  of  Ahura  as  the  common 
Father  of  all  men,  and  to  dispense  with  an  antigod 
in  his  theory  of  the  universe. 

The  Greeks  were  not  a  whit  behind  the  Asiatics 
in  respect  of  faith  in  the  reality  of  a  moral  order 
in  the  life  of  nations  and  of  individual  men.  The 
assertion  of  this  order  was  a  leading  didactic  aim 
for  the  three  great  dramatists.  Taken  together, 
they  taught  a  very  full  doctrine  on  the  subject. 
^Eschylus  laid  the  foundation  in  a  grand  broad 
proclamation  of  the  principle  of  nemesis,  taking  no 
note  of  exceptions,  either  because  he  was  unaware 
of  them,  or  because  he  was  not  in  the  mood  to 
recognise  them.  Sophocles  followed,  saying :  '  The 
foundation  laid  by  my  predecessor  is  unassailable, 
but  there  are  exceptions,  numerous,  perplexing, 
mysterious,  inexplicable.'  Euripides  came  last,  not 
gainsaying  the  law  enunciated  by  ^Eschylus,  still 
less  disputing  the  fact  of  exceptions  insisted  on 
by  Sophocles,  but  throwing  light  on  the  darkest 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  387 

cases  in  the  list  of  exceptions — those  presented  in 
the  sufferings  of  the  eminently  good — by  exhibiting 
them  as  instances  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  benefit  of 
others.  Yet  each  of  the  three  was  one-sided  as  a 
teacher  of  the  common  doctrine.  ^Eschylus  was, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  inobservant  of  in- 
stances in  which  the  great  law  of  Nemesis  failed ; 
Sophocles  was  too  conscious  of  the  exceptions ; 
Euripides  found  in  his  heroes  and  heroines  of  self- 
sacrifice  the  one  source  of  light  and  consolation 
in  an  otherwise  dark,  unintelligible  world.  And 
common  to  all  three  was  this  defect,  that  behind 
the  moral  order  they  saw  the  dark  shadow  of 
necessity  (ananke)>  a  blind  force  exercising  a  morally 
indifferent  sway  over  gods  and  men  alike.  This 
was  the  tribute  paid  by  the  Tragic  Drama  of 
Greece  to  the  principle  of  dualism  embodied  in 
the  Persian  doctrine  of  the  Twin  Spirits,  and 
which  in  one  form  or  another  has  so  often  made 
its  appearance  in  the  history  of  religious  thought. 

The  Stoics  were  strong  in  their  conception  of 
man's  sovereign  place  in  the  universe,  and  in  their 
firm,  cheerful  faith  in  the  rationality  of  the  cosmos. 
They  saw  and  said  that  in  the  world,  after  God, 
there  is  nothing  so  important  as  man,  and  in  man 
nothing  so  important  as  reason ;  that,  therefore, 
the  true  theology  is  that  which  offers  to  faith  a 
rational  divinity,  and  the  true  life  that  which 
consists  in  following  the  dictates  of  reason  as 


388  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

active  in  the  individual  and  immanent  in  the 
universe.  But  their  errors  were  serious.  They 
starved  and  blighted  human  nature  by  finding  no 
place  or  function  for  passion,  and  worshipping  as 
their  ethical  ideal  apathetic  wisdom.  They  shut 
their  eyes  to  patent  facts  of  experience  by  pre- 
tending to  regard  outward  events  as  insignificant 
and  pain  as  no  evil.  They  silenced  the  voice  of 
humanity  in  their  hearts  by  indulging  in  merciless 
contempt  for  the  weak  arid  the  foolish ;  that  is  to 
say,  for  the  great  mass  of  mankind  who  have  not 
mastered  the  art  of  treating  pain  as  a  trifle,  and 
gained  complete  victory  over  passionate  impulse. 

Passing  from  the  Stoic  philosophers  to  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  we  find  in  them  more  to  admire  and  less 
to  censure.  They  do  not,  by  extravagances  like 
those  of  the  Stoics,  lay  themselves  open  to  ridicule. 
Their  sound  Hebrew  sense  keeps  them  from  think- 
ing that  any  part  of  human  nature  is  there  to  be 
extirpated,  or  that  any  part  of  human  experience 
can  be  valueless  or  meaningless.  Passion  has  its 
place  in  their  anthropology  as  well  as  reason,  and 
prosperity  in  their  view  is  worth  having  and 
adversity  a  thing  by  all  legitimate  means  to  be 
shunned.  These  are  among  their  negative  virtues. 
To  their  positive  merits  belong  their  inextinguish- 
able passion  for  righteousness ;  their  faith  in  a  God 
who  loves  right  and  hates  ill,  and  in  one  God  over 
all,  or,  putting  the  two  together,  their  great  doctrine 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  389 

of  ethical  monotheism  \  and,  finally,  their  firm  belief 
that  the  present  world  is,  if  not  the  sole,  at  least 
a  very  real  theatre  wherein  the  moral  government  of 
God  is  exercised.  But  even  they  had  the  defects 
of  their  qualities.  While  doing  full  justice  to  the 
prophetic  doctrine  of  the  moral  order  as  against 
the  diviner's  doctrine  of  a  merely  physical  order  of 
interpretable  signs  premonitory  of  the  future,  we 
were  constrained  to  acknowledge  three  defects  in 
their  teaching.  These  were:  (i)  a  tendency  to 
assert  in  an  extreme  form  the  connection  between 
the  physical  order  and  the  moral  order,  between 
particular  events  in  national  or  individual  history, 
and  particular  actions  of  which  they  are  supposed 
to  be  the  reward  and  punishment ;  (2)  a  tendency 
to  lay  undue  emphasis  on  the  vindictive  action  of 
divine  providence ;  and  (3)  the  tendency  to  attach 
too  much  value  to  outward  good  and  ill  as  the 
divinely  appointed  rewards  and  penalties  of  conduct. 
In  the  first  of  these  defects,  the  prophetic  doctrine 
bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  atomistic  way 
of  applying  the  principle  of  Karma  characteristic 
of  Buddhism,  according  to  which  each  separate  act 
finds  in  some  future  time  its  own  appropriate 
recompense.  It  is,  however,  unnecessary  to  remark 
that  of  the  extravagance  wherewith  Buddhism  doles 
out  the  awards  due  to  separate  deeds  there  is  no 
trace  in  prophetic  literature.  In  the  third  of  the 
defects  above  specified  the  Hebrew  prophet  presents, 


390  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

not  a  resemblance,  but  a  contrast  to  the  Greek 
Stoic.  While  the  Stoic  reckoned  outward  good 
and  ill  matters  of  indifference,  the  prophet,  on  the 
other 'hand,  all  but  found  in  these  things  the  chief 
good  and  the  chief  ill.  At  this  point  the  Stoic 
position  represents  an  advance  in  ethical  thought ; 
but  both  positions  are  one-sided :  the  truth  lies 
between  them. 

One  does  not  need  to  be  a  clergyman  or  a 
professed  apologist,  but  only  a  candid  student  of 
comparative  religion,  to  satisfy  himself  that  the 
teaching  of  Christ  combines  the  merits  and  avoids 
the  defects  specified  in  the  foregoing  review.  On 
all  subjects  that  teaching  shuns  absolute  antitheses, 
onesidedness,  the  falsehood  of  extremes.  In  its 
moral  ideal  it  unites  the  gentleness  of  Buddhism 
with  the  militant  virtue  of  Zoroastrianism.  Its 
doctrine  of  God  satisfies  all  rational  requirements. 
In  contrast  to  Buddhism  it  teaches  that  there  is 
a  God,  to  Zoroastrianism  that  there  is  one  God 
over  all,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth ;  for  the 
Jehovah  of  Hebrew  prophecy,  whose  chief  attribute 
is  retributive  justice,  it  substitutes  a  Divine  Father 
in  whose  character  the  most  conspicuous  quality 
is  benignity,  mercy,  gracious  love.  Its  doctrine  of 
man  equally  commends  itself  to  the  instructed 
reason  and  conscience  as  all  that  can  be  desired. 
With  Stoicism  it  affirms  the  supreme,  incomparable 
worth  of  man,  but,  unlike  Stoicism,  it  does  not 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  391 

nullify  the  significance  of  its  affirmation  by  creating 
a  great  impassable  gulf  between  wise  men  and  fools, 
saints  and  sinners.  Its  assertion  of  the  moral  order 
reaches  the  highest  degree  of  emphasis.  In  common 
with  the  sages  of  India,  Persia,  Greece,  and  Israel, 
Jesus  found  in  the  world  clear  traces  of  a  Power 
making  for  righteousness  and  against  unrighteous- 
ness ;  and,  far  from  exempting  His  own  people  from 
the  scope  of  its  action,  He  saw  in  her  approaching 
doom  the  most  terrific  exemplification  of  its  destruc- 
tive energy.  But  He  interpreted  the  laws  of  the 
moral  order  with  unique  discrimination.  He  did 
not,  like  Buddha,  and  to  a  certain  extent  the 
Hebrew  prophets  also,  assert  the  existence  of  a 
retributive  bond  between  individual  moral  acts  and 
particular  experiences,  but  broadly  recognised  that 
there  is  a  large  sphere  of  human  life  in  which  good 
comes  to  men  irrespective  of  character,  and  wherein 
not  Divine  Justice  but  Divine  Benignity  is  revealed. 
With  the  Stoics  He  recognised  the  inner  life  of  the 
soul  as  the  region  within  which  the  rewards  and 
punishments  of  conduct  are  chiefly  to  be  sought ; 
but  He  did  not,  like  them,  regard  outward  events 
as  wholly  without  moral  significance.  With  the 
Greek  poet  Euripides,  and  the  author  of  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  He  perceived  that  the  doom 
of  the  best  in  this  world  is  to  suffer  as  the  worst,  but 
more  clearly  than  either  He  saw  that  such  sufferers 
need  no  pity,  that  to  describe  them  as  men  of  sorrow 


392  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

is  to  utter  only  a  half-truth,  that  an  exultant,  irre- 
pressibly  glad  temper  is  the  concomitant  and 
appointed  guerdon  of  all  heroic  conduct. 

Christ's  doctrine  of  Providence  possessed  the  same 
circumspect,  balanced  character.  He  taught  that 
God's  providence  is  over  all  His  creatures — plants, 
animals,  human  beings ;  over  all  men,  good  or  evil, 
wise  or  foolish,  great  or  small.  '  God  cares  for  great 
things,  neglects  small/  said  the  Stoic.  '  A  sparrow 
shall  not  fall  on  the  ground  without  your  Father; 
the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered,'  said 
Jesus.  Yet  this  minutely  particular  Divine  Care 
is  not  conceived  of  as  working  spasmodically  and 
miraculously,  but  quietly,  noiselessly,  incessantly, 
through  the  course  of  nature.  God  adds  a  cubit 
and  more  to  the  stature  of  men,  but  not  per  saltum, 
rather  through  the  slow  unobserved  process  of 
growth  from  childhood  to  maturity.  Growth  is  the 
law  everywhere,  even  in  the  moral  world,  there 
trying  to  an  uninstructed  faith  which  expects  con- 
summation of  desire  in  a  day.  The  clear  recogni- 
tion of  this  law  by  Jesus  shows  that,  if  His  habitual 
mood  was  optimistic,  His  optimism  was  not  blind 
or  shallow.  He  saw  that  the  highest  good  in  all 
spheres  was  to  be  attained  only  gradually,  and  He 
was  content  that  it  should  be  so.  One  other 
element  in  His  doctrine  of  Providence  remains  to 
be  specified.  Providence,  as  He  conceived  it,  is  not 
only  universal,  and  at  the  same  time  minutely 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  393 

particular,  but  likewise  mindful  of  all  human 
interests.  It  cares  for  the  body  as  well  as  for  the 
soul,  for  time  as  well  as  for  eternity,  for  social  as 
well  as  for  spiritual  well-being.  Yet  an  order  of 
importance  is  duly  recognised.  To  the  Kingdom 
of  God  is  assigned  the  first  place,  to  food  and 
raiment  and  all  they  represent  only  the  second. 
By  this  balanced  view  of  .providential  action  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  steers  a  middle  course  between 
the  opposite  extremes  of  asceticism  and  secu- 
larism, between  the  morbid  mood  for  which  the 
temporal  is  nothing,  and  the  worldly  mind  for 
which  it  is  everything. 

From  all  this  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  the 
path  of  progress  for  the  future  must  lie  along  the 
line  of  Christ's  teaching ;  that  the  least  thing  men 
who  seek  the  good  of  our  race  can  do  is  to  serve 
themselves  heir  to  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  concerning 
God,  man,  the  world,  and  their  relations,  and  work 
these  out  under  modern  conditions.  Reversion  to 
the  things  behind  is  surely  a  mistake.  No  good  can 
come  of  a  return,  with  Schopenhauer,  to  the  pessi- 
mistic despair  of  Buddhism,  or,  with  other  modern 
thinkers,  to  the  dualism  of  Zoroaster,  or,  under  the 
sturdy  leadership  of  a  Huxley,  to  the  grim,  defiant 
mood  of  Stoicism.  Such  movements  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  excusable  but  temporary  reactions,  and 
the  Christian  attitude  is  to  be  viewed  as  that  which 
must  gain  more  and  more  the  upper  hand.  For 


394  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

men  thus  minded  the  summary  of  faith  and  practice 
will  be :  '  One  supreme  Will  at  the  heart  of  the 
universe,  good  and  ever  working  for  good ;  man's 
chief  end  to  serve  this  supreme  will  in  filial  freedom, 
and  in  loyal  devotion  to  righteousness ;  life  on 
earth  on  these  terms  worth  living,  full  of  joy  if  not 
without  tribulation,  to  be  spent  in  cheerfulness  and 
without  ascetic  austerities ;  life  beyond  the  tomb 
an  object  of  rational  hope,  if  not  of  undoubting 
certainty.' 

It  would,  however,  be  too  sanguine  a  forecast 
which  would  anticipate  for  this  short  Christian  creed 
a  speedy  universal  acceptance  even  within  the 
bounds  of  Christendom.  It  is  natural  that  we  who 
stand  on  the  margin  between  two  centuries  should 
wistfully  inquire,  What  is  before  us?  what  is  our 
prospect  for  the  future?  By  way  of  answer  to  this 
question  three  competing  programmes  present 
themselves.  One  has  for  its  watchword:  *  No 
religion  with  a  definite  theological  belief,  however 
brief;  at  most,  a  purely  ethical  religion/  A  second 
offers  us  a  perennial  ultra-rational  religion,  with 
awful  sanctions  steadily  promoting  social  well-being. 
A  third  claims  that  for  all  the  higher  interests  of 
life  the  best  thing  that  could  happen  would  be  the 
revival  of  the  simple  Christianity  of  Christ  and  the 
working  out  of  His  great  thoughts. 

The  first  of  these  programmes  indicates  fairly 
well  the  position  of  those  who  have  devoted  their 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  395 

efforts  to  the  promotion  of  what  is  known  as  the 
ethical  movement.  This  movement,  which  originated 
in  America  and  is  spreading  in  Europe,  is  one  of 
the  significant  spiritual  phenomena  of  our  time.  Its 
avowed  aim  is  to  insist  upon  the  supreme  import- 
ance of  the  moral  nature  of  man,  apart  altogether 
from  theological  dogmas  and  religious  sanctions. 
Its  promoters  think  that,  without  bringing  a  railing 
accusation  against  the  Church,  it  may  be  affirmed 
with  truth  that  organised  Christianity  does  not 
provide  for  ethical  interests  in  a  manner  so  effectual, 
and  in  all  respects  so  satisfactory,  as  to  make  a 
special  effort  outside  the  Churches  by  men  having 
that  one  end  in  view  superfluous.  This  opinion  it 
is  not  necessary  to  contest.  Churchmen  have  no 
occasion  to  be  jealous  of  a  new  departure  in  the 
interest  of  morality,  or  to  resent  any  criticism  on 
the  Church  as  an  institute  for  the  culture  of  morality 
offered  by  supporters  of  the  movement  in  justifica- 
tion of  their  conduct.  There  need  be  no  hesitation 
in  recognising  the  value  of  the  aim  which  the  ethical 
movement  sets  before  itself.  It  directs  attention  to 
what  is  undoubtedly  the  main  interest  of  human 
life,  the  maintenance  in  strength  and  purity  of  the 
moral  sentiments.  If  it  can  do  this  more  impres- 
sively than  the  Church,  which  has  many  other 
interests  to  care  for  besides  ethics — creed,  ritual, 
government,  finance — why,  then,  in  God's  name  let 
it  bestir  itself  in  the  good  work.  Let  ethical  societies 


396  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

spring  up  on  every  side,  and  do  their  utmost  to 
impress  on  men's  minds  that  conduct  is  the 
supremely  important  matter,  the  test  of  the  worth 
of  all  religion  and  the  fruit  by  which  it  is  known 
what  any  religion  is  good  for,  and  that  this  life  and 
its  affairs  are  the  theatre  in  which  right  conduct  is 
to  be  practised.  If  they  succeed  in  this,  a  one-sided 
emphasis  on  ethics  as  man's  exclusive  concern,  and 
as  an  interest  much  neglected  by  religious  com- 
munities, will  be  very  pardonable. 

The  representatives  and  literary  interpreters  of 
this  new  movement  do  not  repudiate  the  Christian 
name.  They  accept  in  the  main  the  ethical  teaching 
of  Jesus,  and  they  value  Christian  civilisation.  One 
of  the  most  influential  of  their  number,  Mr. 
Bosanquet,  advises  the  brotherhood  to  keep  their 
minds  alive  to  the  grand  tradition  of  their  spiritual 
ancestry,  'the  tradition  that  human  or  Christian 
life  is  the  full  and  continuous  realisation  in  mind 
and  act  of  the  better  self  of  mankind.' x  Neither  he 
nor  any  other  representative  man  connected  with 
the  movement  would  care  to  be  described  as  irre- 
ligious, or  would,  with  M.  Guyau,  adopt  as  his 
watchword  'Non-Religion,'  as  the  goal  towards 
which  Society  is  moving.  They  seem  rather  in- 
clined to  claim  for  their  cause  a  religious  character, 
and  to  give  Duty  something  like  the  place  of  Deity. 
Their  tone,  indeed,  is  not  quite  uniform.  Mr.  Leslie 

1  Bernard  Bosanquet,  The  Civilisation  of  Christendom,  p.  98. 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  397 

Stephen,  e.g.  says:  'We,  as  members  of  ethical 
societies,  have  no  claim  to  be,  even  in  the  humblest 
way,  missionaries  of  a  new  religion ;  but  are  simply 
interested  in  doing  what  we  can  to  discuss  in  a 
profitable  way  the  truths  which  it  ought  to  embody 
or  reflect.'1  But  another  of  more  devout  temper, 
and  not  less  intellectual  competency,  Mr.  Sheldon, 
speaks  in  this  wise :  '  To  me  this  movement  is  not 
a  philosophy  but  a  religion.' 2  Of  the  sense  of  duty 
he  writes :  '  It  is  to  me  what  the  word  "  God  "  has 
stood  for;  it  represents  to  me  what  the  phrase  " for 
Christ's  sake  "  has  implied  ;  it  means  to  me  what  I 
once  attributed  to  the  unconditional  authority  of 
the  Bible.'8  Mr.  Bosanquet  expressly  repudiates 
the  designation  'agnostic'  for  this  significant  reason: 

*  Strictly,  to  be  an  agnostic  is  to  be  a  heathen,  and 
we  are  not  heathens,  for  we  are  members  of  Christen- 
dom.' *     His  dislike  of  the  title  is  so  strong  that  he 
devotes  a  whole  discourse  to  the  discussion  of  the 
question, '  Are  we  Agnostics  ? '  his  answer  being  an 
emphatic  negative  :  not,  of  course,  because  he  has  no 
sympathy  with  the  agnostic's  position,  but  because 
he  does  not  care  to  be  defined  by  a  negative,  or  to 
spend  his  life  in  reiterating  the  barren  thesis  that 
God  is  unknowable,  and  would  rather  be  occupied 

*  with  the  life  and  with  the  good  that  we  know,  and 

1  Social  Rights  and  Duties,  vol.  i.  p.  43. 

2  W.  L.  Sheldon,  An  Ethical  Movement,  p.  13. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  63. 

4  The  Civilisation  of  Christendom,  p.  79. 


398  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

with  what  can  be  made  of  them.'1  This  position 
one  can  understand  and  respect.  At  the  same  time, 
it  cannot  be  said  that  great  injustice  is  done  by 
applying  the  epithet  'agnostic'  to  a  system  which 
recognises  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  as  one  of  its  accredited 
teachers,  and  whose  raison  d'etre  is  to  exalt  ethics 
as  the  supremely  important  interest,  as  the  one  in- 
dubitable certainty  in  the  region  of  the  spirit,  and 
as  able  to  stand  alone  without  theistic  and  theo- 
logical buttressing. 

The  importance,  certainty,  and  independence  of 
ethics  no  earnest  man  can  have  any  zeal  in  calling 
in  question.  Least  of  all  the  first  of  these  three 
affirmations.  On  the  contrary,  we  must  wish  god- 
speed to  all  who  make  it  their  business  to  impress 
upon  their  fellow-men  that  duty  is  the  supreme  fact 
of  human  life,  duty  understood  as  'the  command  of 
our  highest  self,  bidding  us,  in  scorn  of  transient 
consequences,  to  act  as  if  we  belonged  not  to  our- 
selves, but  to  a  universal  system  or  order,  and  to 
render  unconditional  obedience  to  the  highest  law 
or  highest  measure  of  value  that  we  know  of.' 2  In 
spite  of  the  variations  in  moral  judgments,  we  admit 
with  equal  readiness  the  second  proposition  :  the 
certainty  of  man's  moral  nature  as  a  great  fact. 
Whatever  may  pass  away,  the  human  soul  remains. 
Theologies  may  come  and  go,  but  conscience  abides. 

1  The  Civilisation  of  Christendom,  p.  35. 
1  Sheldon,  An  Ethical  Movement,  p.  57. 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  399 

Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  says  :  '  I  believe  in  heat,  and  I 
believe  in  the  conscience.  I  reject  the  atoms,  and 
I  reject  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement.'1  The 
meaning  is  that  heat  and  conscience  are  ultimate 
undeniable  facts,  while  atoms  and  the  atonement 
are  but  theories  about  these  facts.  So  be  it ;  let 
the  theories  go  for  what  they  are  worth,  and  let  it 
be  admitted  that  the  facts  do  not  depend  on  the 
theories,  and  that  they  would  remain  if  the  theories 
were  demonstrated  to  be  fallacious.  This  is  tanta- 
mount to  admitting  the  third  contention  also :  the 
capacity  of  ethics  to  stand  alone  without  theistic 
or  theological  buttresses.  The  admission  is  made 
willingly.  The  dilapidation  of  the  buttresses  would 
not,  I  acknowledge,  involve  the  tumbling  into  ruin 
of  the  moral  edifice.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  decay 
of  religious  faith  would  necessarily  lead  to  the 
withering  of  moral  sentiment  and  the  demoralisation 
of  conduct.  So  far  from  thinking  that  religion 
creates  conscience,  I  rather  incline  to  the  view  that 
conscience  creates  religion. 

But  just  on  this  account  I  am  persuaded  that  the 
new  ethical  movement  will  not  long  remain  merely 
ethical.  If  it  has  real  vitality  and  fervour,  it  will 
blossom  out  into  a  religious  creed  of  some  kind. 
It  will  do  so  if  it  enlist  in  its  service  all  the  powers 
of  the  soul,  the  heart  and  the  imagination  as  well  as 
the  conscience  and  the  reason.  It  must  do  so  if 

1  Social  Rights  and  Duties,  vol.  ii.  p.  218. 


400  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

it  is  to  escape  from  the  aridity  of  prose  into  the 
fertility  and  beauty  of  poetry.  It  must  do  so,  once 
more,  if  it  is  to  pass  from  the  lecture-hall  into  the 
market-place  and  become  a  great  power  in  the 
community.  Indications  are  not  wanting  that  the 
apostles  of  the  new  movement  are  half-conscious 
that  this  is  their  inevitable  destiny.  Germs  of  a 
new  creed  indeed  can  be  discovered  in  their  writings. 
They  do  not  care  for  the  word  '  God ' ;  they  sympa- 
thise with  those  who,  like  Goethe,  Carlyle,  and 
Arnold,  have  tried  to  invent  new  names  for  the 
Ineffable,  but  they  acknowledge  that  there  is  Some- 
thing in  the  universe  calling  for  a  name,  a  mystery, 
a  unity,  yea  even  a  bias  on  the  side  of  goodness. 
One  writes :  '  We  fancy  somehow  that  the  nature  of 
things  "takes  sides,"  as  it  were,  in  the  struggle  going 
on  within  itself — not,  however,  in  reference  to  every 
form  of  conflict,  but  in  the  great  battle  between 
good  and  evil' — is,  in  short,  '  on  the  side  of  those 
who  devote  themselves  to  the  ideally  Good.'1  Hence 
the  comforting  assurance  that  '  a  divine  providence 
is  taking  our  side  in  the  conflict,'  or,  if  you  prefer  to 
put  it  so,  '  that  we  are  taking  sides  with  the  divine 
providence.'2  To  the  same  effect  another  writes: 
'  I  do  not  believe  that  ethical  faith — faith  in  the 
reality  of  the  good — is  the  spirit  of  a  forlorn  hope, 
though,  if  it  were  so,  it  would  still  be  the  only  spirit 

1  Sheldon,  An  Ethical  Movement,  pp.  94,  95. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  96. 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  401 

possible  for  us.'1  He  means  thereby  to  express 
faith  in  God,  shorn  of  some  useless  or  distracting 
accessories,  that  faith  which  still  governs  life  under 
the  new  name  of  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  good.2 
The  same  author  ascribes  to  the  universe  '  a  reason- 
able tendency,'8  and  even  'grace,' manifesting  itself 
through  heredity  and  education,  which  confer  on 
the  individual  unmerited  good  gifts,4  and  declares 
'that  man's  goodness  consists  in  being  effectually 
inspired  by  divine  ideas.'5 

Here  are  germs  of  a  new  faith  in  a  wise,  righteous, 
benignant  Providence.  They  are  only  germs,  but 
all  vital  beginnings  are  significant  and  potent. 
They  are  very  vague  and  colourless  in  expression. 
They  are  indeed  but  the  shadowy  ghosts  of  old 
Christian  beliefs  which  were  embodied  in  fuller, 
richer,  more  inspiring  forms  of  language.  The 
Father  in  heaven  of  Jesus  has  become  the  universe, 
or  nature  endowed  with  reasonable,  righteous,  and 
gracious  tendencies,  but  denuded  of  personality  and 
intelligence.  The  question  forces  itself  upon  us : 
What  is  gained  by  the  change  of  nomenclature  ?  At 
most,  a  temporary  escape  from  religious  phrases 
which  had  become  threadbare,  or  debased  by  vulgar, 
unintelligent,  insincere  use.  The  dislike  of  cant  in 
religion  all  earnest  men  feel,  but,  that  allowed  for, 

1  Bosanquet,  The  Civilisation  of  Christendom,  p.  115. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  115.  *  Ibid.,  p.  114. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  121.  *  Ibid.,  p.  121. 

2C 


402  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

it  may  reasonably  be  maintained  that  for  permanent 
purposes  the  old  dialect  is  better  than  the  new. 
Better  every  way,  even  in  point  of  intellectual  con- 
sistency. Surely  it  is  more  philosophic  to  connect 
reasonable,  righteous,  gracious  tendencies  in  the 
universe  with  personality  and  intelligence  than  to 
dissociate  the  two  sets  of  qualities!  As  for  im- 
pressiveness,  there  is  no  comparison  between  the 
two  dialects.  You  could  not  go  before  a  popular 
audience  with  such  bloodless  phrases  as  Mr. 
Bosanquet  has  coined.  They  would  appear  either 
unintelligible  or  ludicrous.  But  speak  of  a  Father 
in  heaven,  then  all  people,  learned  and  unlearned, 
know  what  you  mean  when  you  talk  of  the  reason, 
justice  and  grace  immanent  in  the  universe.  They 
not  only  understand  you,  but  they  are  touched  by 
what  you  say.  They  admire  the  felicitous  fitness 
between  name  and  thing ;  they  are  moved  by  the 
pathos  of  the  name ;  they  are  stirred  to  religious 
affection — to  faith  in  the  goodwill  of  the  Supreme, 
to  cheerful  confidence  in  His  providence,  to  an 
inspiring,  invigorating  sense  of  dignity  as  His  sons, 
and  of  the  high  responsibilities  arising  out  of  filial 
relations.  The  ethical  movement  aspires  to  be  a 
new  reformation.  If  it  desires  to  realise  the  ambition 
implied  in  the  name  it  will  have  to  recognise  more 
unreservedly  the  Mastership  of  Jesus.1  The  Ethical 

1  In  harmony  with  this  statement,  Professor  Tiele  closes  his  second 
course  of  Giffoi'd  Lectures  with  the  declaration  '  that  without  preach- 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  403 

Movement  must  become  an  Ethical  Theism,  with  this 
for  its  message  to  men  :  '  We  love  virtue  for  its  own 
sake  and  desire  the  prevalence  of  disinterested  de- 
votion to  the  good.  But  it  is  no  easy  thing  in  this 
world  to  live  up  to  one's  moral  ideal.  We  need 
Divine  inspiration  and  aid.  And  what  we  need  we 
have.  There  is  an  Almighty  One  who  sympathises 
with  our  aim,  and  who  will  help  and  guide  us  in  our 
endeavour  after  its  attainment'  Morality  must  be 
touched  with  emotion  to  become  infectious,  and 
emotion  springs  out  of  religious  faith.  The  world 
belongs  to  the  religious  '  enthusiast,  for  enthusiasm 
is  necessary  to  mankind  ;  it  is  the  genius  of  the 
masses  and  the  productive  element  in  the  genius  of 
individuals.'1 

2.  Of  the  theory  which  offers  non-rational  religion 
as  the  great  propelling  power  in  social  evolution, 
enough  has  already  been  said  in  the  way  of  ex- 
position and  criticism.  Only  a  few  words  need  here 
be  added  regarding  it  as  an  alternative  gospel  of 
hope  for  the  future. 

It  will  be  obvious  in  what  radical  antagonism  this 
theory  stands  to  the  view  which  has  just  been 
considered.  Morality  independent  of  religion  and 
capable  of  flourishing  in  vigour  when  religion  has 
become  a  thing  of  the  past — such  is  the  watchword 

ing,  or  special  pleading,  or  apologetic  argument,'  the  science  of  religion 
'  will  help  to  bring  home  to  the  restless  spirits  of  our  time  the  truth  that 
there  is  no  rest  for  them  unless  they  arise  and  go  to  their  Father.' 
1  M.  Guyau,  The  Non-Religion  of  the  Future^  p.  401. 


404  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  men  like  Guyau  and  Renan,  and,  less  bluntly 
expressed,  as  becomes  the  gravity  of  English-speak- 
ing men,  of  the  American  aud  British  apostles  of 
the  ethical  movement.  Morality,  in  the  sense  of 
altruism,  devoted  self-sacrificing  regard  for  the 
well-being  of  others,  impossible  without  the  com- 
pelling influence  of  non-rational  religious  beliefs, 
supported  by  sanctions  which  powerfully  appeal  to 
men's  hopes  and  fears,  and  make  it  their  interest 
to  be  disinterested — such  is  the  watchword  of  the 
author  of  Social  Evolution  and  of  all  who  accept  him 
as  their  spokesman.  Positions  more  utterly  opposed 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive.  It  is  surprising  and 
discouraging  that  at  this  time  of  day  views  so 
absolutely  incompatible  in  their  direct  statements 
and  in  their  whole  implications  can  find  advocates 
in  a  Christian  community.  Both  positions  are 
tainted  with  the  falsehood  of  extremes.  The  motto, 
Morality  without  religion,  divorces  two  things  which 
nature  has  joined  together  as  cause  and  effect,  as 
reality  and  ideal.  Given  morality  with  the  needful 
depth  and  intensity,  and  it  will  inevitably  create  a 
Deity  and  a  religion  congenial  to  itself  wherein  all 
the  cherished  ideals  towards  which  it  incessantly 
aspires  and  struggles  find  rest-giving  realisation. 
The  motto:  Altruistic  morality  impossible,  without 
religion  furnished  with  compulsory  sanctions,  means, 
in  the  ultimate  result :  such  morality  impossible  even 
with  such  a  religion.  For  it  implies  that  love,  care 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  405 

for  others,  sociality,  is  foreign  to  human  nature. 
That  being  so,  how  vain  to  think  of  driving  men 
into  love  through  fear !  It  can  at  most  only  produce 
a  simulated  love,  an  interested  disinterestedness 
which  may  bear  some  fruit  in  socially  beneficial 
acts,  but  has  no  part  or  lot  in  the  spirit  of  self- 
devotion.  That  even  so  much  good  will  be  reaped 
is  far  from  certain  ;  for,  as  we  saw  in  last  Lecture, 
the  law  without  to  which  nothing  within  responds 
is  more  likely  to  produce  reaction  against  itself  than 
to  ensure  even  feigned  submission  to  its  behests.  A 
loveless  nature  will  either  sweep  away  a  religion 
which  seeks  to  curb  its  individualistic  impulses,  or 
it  will  alter  it  to  suit  its  taste.  It  will  have  no 
affection  for  a  religion  with  a  lofty,  pure,  humane, 
ethical  ideal.  It  will  eliminate  the  humanity  and 
transform  the  religion  in  question,  retaining  the 
name,  into  a  scheme  of  self-salvation  for  the  next 
world,  combined  with  a  life  dominated  by  covetous- 
ness  in  this  world. 

Neither  of  these  extremes  is  to  be  accepted  as  a 
satisfactory  programme,  but  of  the  two  evils  the 
first-named  is  the  lesser.  It  gives  at  least  one 
good  thing — altruism,  social  instinct,  as  an  inalien- 
able element  of  human  nature.  This  undoubtedly  it 
is.  There  is  more  to  be  said  of  man  in  the  average 
than  that  he  is  rational,  and  that  he  has  religious 
instincts — even  this,  that  he  is  essentially  social. 
When  you  tell  him  that  God  is  a  Father,  there  is 


406  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

that  in  him  which  helps  him  in  some  measure  to 
appreciate  the  moral  significance  of  the  name. 
Though  there  be  much  evil  in  him,  yet  he  has  the 
heart  to  give  good  gifts  to  his  children.1  Man  had 
in  his  nature  the  rudiments  of  sociality  from  the  day 
he  began  to  belong  to  a  family.  Sociality  in  the 
form  of  family  life  is  the  primary  datum,  the  founda- 
tion, of  human  civilisation,  and  its  root  and  source 
was,  not  any  religion  furnished  with  awful  sanctions, 
but  the  prolonged  dependence  of  the  human  child 
upon  the  care  of  its  parents.  And  there  is  still 
a  real,  valuable  morality  independent  of  religion, 
depending  simply  on  'the  facts  that  men  have 
certain  emotions ;  that  mothers  love  their  children  ; 
that  there  are  such  things  as  pity,  and  sympathy, 
and  public  spirit,  and  that  there  are  social  instincts 
upon  the  growth  of  which  depends  the  vitality  of 
the  race.'2 

3.  But  there  is  a  better  way  than  either,  even  the 
acceptance  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  concerning  God 
and  man  and  Providence  as  the  wisest  and  most 
reasonable  the  world  has  yet  known,  and  the  surest 
guide  to  all  who  seek  the  higher  good  of  humanity. 
On  the  religious  side,  those  who  adopt  this  position 
differ  from  both  the  parties  previously  described. 
They  differ  from  the  ethicists  in  attaching  import- 
ance to  the  religious  element,  that  is  to  say,  to  a 

1  Matthew  vii.  n. 

*  Leslie  Stephen,  Social  Rights  and  Duties,  vol.  ii.  p.  219. 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  407 

definite,  earnest  belief  in  a  God  who  is  best  named 
Father,  and  in  a  benignant  providence  answering  to 
the  name.  In  this  faith  they  find  inspiration  for 
endeavour,  and  hope  for  ultimate  success,  and  in  the 
correlate  conception  of  man  as  son  of  God  they  find 
a  strong  support  to  that  sense  of  the  moral  worth  of 
human  nature  which  is  the  fundamental  postulate 
of  Christian  civilisation,  but  which  many  anti-social 
influences  tend  to  weaken.  On  the  other  hand,  while 
at  one  with  the  class  of  thinkers  of  whom  Mr.  Kidd 
is  the  spokesman  in  attaching  high  value  to  religion, 
they  differ  radically  from  them  in  their  conception 
of  the  nature  of  the  Christian  religion  and  in  their 
views  as  to  the  secret  of  its  power.  That  religion 
appears  to  their  minds  intrinsically  reasonable, 
credible,  and  acceptable,  and  in  their  judgment  its 
power  lies,  not  in  mystery  revealed  either  in  dogma 
or  in  sacrament,  nor  in  awe-inspiring  vistas  of  a  future 
existence,  but  in  its  capacity  to  satisfy  the  whole 
spiritual  nature  of  man,  including  reason,  conscience, 
and  heart.  Its  great,  grand  thoughts  of  God,  man, 
and  duty  are  its  best  credentials  and  persuasives. 
These  speak  for  themselves  to  the  human  soul ; 
they  awaken  a  response  in  manly  natures  utterly 
indifferent  to  eternal  terrors ;  their  very  elevation  is 
their  charm,  for  lofty  ideals  appeal  to  the  heroic  in 
our  nature,  and  so  make  way  when  low  accommo- 
dating ideals  are  treated  with  contempt.  * "  Love 
ye  one  another;  by  this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye 


408  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

are  My  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  one  to  another." 
In  this  admirable  and  eternal  precept  there  is  more 
of  inexhaustible,  practical  power  than  in  :  Ye  shall 
be  cast  into  the  fire ;  there  shall  be  wailing  and 
gnashing  of  teeth.'1  The  fact  is  so,  because  there  is 
that  in  man  which  is  able  to  respond  to  such  teach- 
ing, and  which  gives  its  response  with  the  greatest 
promptitude  and  earnestness  when  the  doctrine  is 
made  to  rest  on  its  own  intrinsic  merits. 

Men  who  profess  to  be  disciples  of  Jesus  cannot 
consistently  ignore  the  hope  of  a  life  beyond  the 
tomb,  or  refuse  it  a  place  among  the  motives  to  right 
conduct.  But,  if  they  be  intelligent  disciples,  they 
will  not  allow  the  eternal  to  swallow  up  the 
temporal.  They  will  recognise  the  substantial  value 
of  the  present  life,  and  see  in  social  well-being  the 
practical  outcome  of  the  Christian  faith.  In  this 
respect  leaders  of  thought,  amid  all  variations  of 
opinion,  are  happily  agreed.  Secularism,  in  a  good 
sense,  is  a  phase  of  the  modern  spirit.  There  is  no 
reason  in  this  fact  for  alienation  from  the  Christianity 
of  Christ.  For  Christ's  doctrine  of  providence,  as 
we  saw,  included  all  the  good  elements  of  secularism, 
asserting  divine  care  for  man's  body  as  well  as  for 
his  soul,  for  social  as  well  as  for  spiritual  health. 

While  that  doctrine  should  commend  itself  to  all 
men  of  goodwill,  it  contains  little  or  nothing  that 
can  offend  philosophers  and  men  of  science.  For 

1  Guyau,  The  Non- Religion  of  the  Future,  p.  406. 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  409 

Jesus  taught  a  providence  that  works  and  achieves 
its  ends  through  the  processes  of  nature,  and  that 
reaches  the  accomplishment  of  its  purpose  gradually, 
not  per  saltum.  In  His  conception  of  Divine  Pro- 
vidence Jesus  gave  no  undue  prominence  to  the 
unusual  and  the  catastrophic.  His  watchwords  were : 
Nature  God's  instrument ;  and,  Growth  the  law  of 
the  moral  as  of  the  physical  world. 

Men  of  all  schools,  therefore  —  moralists,  reli- 
gionists, philanthropists,  philosophers,  scientists  — 
might  reasonably  be  expected  to  march  together 
under  Christ's  banner,  and  fight  with  one  heart  for  the 
sacred  cause  of  humanity  in  the  name  of  God  the 
Father,  for  men,  His  sons.  Or,  if  it  be  too  much  to 
hope  for  general  agreement  as  to  the  religious  aspect 
of  Christ's  teaching,  one  may  surely  count  on  a  cordial 
consensus  as  to  the  rational,  wholesome,  beneficent 
tendency  of  the  ethical  principles  enunciated  in  His 
recorded  sayings  !  Dissent,  vehement  contradiction, 
may  indeed  be  encountered  even  here ;  but  those 
who  at  present  take  up  this  attitude  are  not  a 
numerous  body,  and  it  may  be  hoped  that  they  will 
become  fewer  in  the  course  of  time.  Intelligent, 
cordial  acceptance  of  the  Christian  ethic  will  mean 
much,  e.g.,  a  conservative  view  of  marriage,  the 
family,  and  the  state,  as  institutions  rooted  in  the 
nature  of  things,  the  subversion  of  which  is  not  to 
be  thought  of,  but  at  most  only  their  improvement 
in  the  light  of  experience.  Whether  it  should  mean 


410  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

conservation  of  certain  other  things,  e.g.,  private  pro- 
perty, is  a  question  on  which  much  wider  divergence 
of  opinion  may  be  looked  for.  There  are  some  so 
hostile  to  property,  or  *  capital,'  that  to  destroy  it 
they  would  be  ready  to  destroy  other  things  hitherto 
held  sacred — Deity,  government,  wedlock.  One  can 
guess  what  such  revolutionaries  would  have  to  say 
to  the  Founder  of  the  Christian  faith.  They  would 
offer  Him  the  peremptory  alternatives :  *  Take  our 
side,  or  we  renounce  you/ 

What  the  bearing  of  Christ's  teaching  on  the 
Socialistic  movement  of  our  day  really  is,  is  not  a 
question  that  can  be  answered  offhand.  It  is  not, 
as  religious  conservatives  may  imagine,  a  matter 
of  course  that  it  is  against  that  movement  simply 
because  the  latter  would  amount  to  a  social  revolu- 
tion ;  for  the  words  of  Jesus  have  acted,  in  certain 
instances,  as  a  revolutionary  force  in  the  past,  and 
they  may  do  so  again.  As  little  is  it  a  matter  of 
course  that  it  is  on  its  side.  As  to  the  general 
tendency  of  Christ's  doctrine,  there  is  no  room  for 
doubt.  It  is  emphatically  humane.  Jesus  was  on 
the  side  of  the  weak,  of  the  little  child  and  all  that 
the  little  child  represents.  Therefore  He  was  the 
friend  of  the  poor ;  and  were  He  living  amongst  us 
now  He  would  regard  with  intense  compassion  the 
many  whose  lives  are  made  wretched  by  the  burden 
of  abject,  hopeless  poverty.  In  not  a  few  instances 
His  keen  eye  might  perceive  that  the  poverty  was 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  411 

the  natural  penalty  of  the  poor  man's  folly.  But  in 
many  others  He  would  with  equal  clearness  discern 
in  poverty  the  undeserved  result  of  social  injustice, 
and  therefore  a  wrong  to  be  righted  by  a  return  to 
justice  and  mercy  on  the  part  of  the  wrong-doers. 

What  such  a  return  would  imply  is  the  abstruse 
question.  The  humanity  of  the  Gospel  ultimately 
led  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  because  slavery  was 
slowly  discovered  to  be  an  inhuman  thing.  Must 
it  likewise,  sooner  or  later,  lead  to  the  abolition  of 
property  or  capitalism  and  the  introduction  of  a 
Collectivist  millennium  ?  That  depends  on  the  char- 
acter of  said  millennium.  Is  it  to  be  an  economical 
one  mainly,  or  is  the  ethical  to  be  in  the  ascendant? 
For  Christianity  the  ethical  is  the  supreme  category, 
and  it  judges  all  things  by  their  bearing  thereon. 
How,  then,  does  it  stand  with  Socialism  ?  Does  it 
place  ethical  interests  first?  does  it  even  tend  to 
promote  the  higher  morality  as  a  secondary  interest? 
That  it  does  is  by  no  means  so  clear  as  one  could 
desire.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  thinkers  of 
the  day  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  ethical 
propagandism  express  grave  doubts  on  the  subject. 
Mr.  Bosanquet  is  of  opinion  that  Economic  Socialism 
does  not  tend  to  Moral  Socialism,  or  altruism,  but 
rather  to  Moral  Individualism,  or  selfishness.1  Mr. 
Leslie  Stephen  contends  for  the  moral  value  of  com- 
petition, and  hints  that  the  Socialist  ideal  is  a  land 

1  Civilisation  of  Christendom,  pp.  315  ff. 


412  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

in  which  the  chickens  run  about  ready-roasted,  and 
the  curse  of  labour  is  finally  removed  from  mankind.1 
M.  Guyau  bluntly  describes  the  Socialist  ideal  as 
'a  life  which  is  completely  foreseen,  ensured — with 
the  element  of  fortune  and  of  hope  left  out,  with  the 
heights  and  the  depths  of  human  life  levelled  away 
— an  existence  somewhat  utilitarian  and  uniform, 
regularly  plotted  off  like  the  squares  on  a  checker 
board,  incapable  of  satisfying  the  ambitious  desires 
of  the  mass  of  mankind.'2  Mr.  Sheldon  is  more 
sympathetic  in  his  tone.  Taking  his  stand  'at  a 
spiritual  distance  from  all  the  scramble,  the  strikes 
and  the  lock-outs,  the  boycotts,  the  turmoil  and  the 
violence,  the  accusations  and  recriminations,'3  he 
tries  to  see  what  the  movement  implies  as  a  whole, 
what  it  means  '  as  a  historic  wave-movement.'  He 
hopes  that  in  spite  of  all  the  materialism,  selfishness, 
petty  rivalries  and  ambitions  connected  with  it  in 
the  meantime,  the  trend  is  towards  higher  moral 
manhood,  and  that  at  the  end  of  another  century, 
when  the  ideal  industrial  system  of  Socialist  expecta- 
tions shall  have  been  proved  to  be  a  dream,  the  pre- 
vailing enthusiasm  will  be  for  the  ethical  ideal.4 
Socialists  will  probably  not  thank  him  for  his 
charitable  forecast.  It  virtually  makes  their  case 
analogous  to  that  of  the  Jews,  who  looked  for  a 

1  Social  Rights  and  Duties,  vol.  i.  pp.  133-173. 
8  The  Non- Religion  of  the  Future,  p.  369. 
8  An  Ethical  Movement,  p.  288. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  298. 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  413 

political  Messiah  and  an  ideal  national  prosperity 
that  never  came,  and  got  instead  a  spiritual  Christ  and 
a  Kingdom  of  heaven  which  they  did  not  appreciate. 

But  no  estimate  of  Socialism  emanating  from  the 
ethical  school  is  so  unfavourable  as  that  formed  by 
Mr.  Kidd.  It  is  to  the  following  effect :  The  aim  of 
Socialists  is  perfectly  natural.  It  is  simply  a  case 
of  men  who  toil  trying  to  better  themselves  by 
asserting  what  they  believe  to  be  the  just  claims  of 
labour  against  capital.  Nevertheless  the  carrying 
out  of  the  Socialist  programme  would  be  ultimately 
ruinous.  But  on  mere  grounds  of  reason  that  is  no 
sufficient  answer  to  advocates  of  Socialist  principles. 
They  are  entitled  to  reply :  '  What  do  we  care  for 
the  future  of  the  country  ? — our  sole  concern  is  for 
our  own  present  personal  interest/  Against  this 
quite  rational  yet  ruinous  movement  the  only 
barrier  is  the  altruistic  spirit  which  ultra-rational 
religion  engenders.  What  graver  indictment  could 
be  brought  against  any  movement  than  this,  which 
represents  Socialism  as  destructive  of  public  well- 
being  sooner  or  later,  indifferent  to  the  ruin  it  will 
ultimately  entail,  and  bound  in  self-defence  against 
anti-socialistic  altruism  to  assume  an  attitude  of 
uncompromising  antagonism  towards  religion  ? 

Mr.  .Kidd  is  a  biassed  witness,  as  he  is  chiefly 
concerned  to  make  out  a  case  for  the  necessity  of 
a  religion  mysterious  in  its  doctrines  and  armed 
with  supra-rational  sanctions  as  the  sole  guarantee 


414  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  social  progress.  I  should  be  sorry  to  think  so  ill 
of  any  movement  which  has  for  its  professed  aim  to 
improve  the  economic  condition  of  the  industrial 
part  of  the  community.  I  have  no  right  and  no 
intention  to  pronounce  any  opinion  on  the  question 
at  issue.  My  general  attitude  is  one  of  mingled 
sympathy  and  apprehension.  I  care  greatly  more 
for  the  million  than  for  the  millionaire.  But  I  dread 
leaps  in  the  dark.  It  will  be  wise  to  move  slowly, 
lest  too  great  haste  in  well-meant  but  ill-instructed 
endeavour  should  have  a  disastrous  issue.  Evolu- 
tion, not  revolution,  should  be  the  motto.  Of  one 
thing  I  am  sure,  viz.,  that  no  ultimate  good  will 
come  of  movements  which  set  economic  above  moral 
interests.  It  is  true  that  in  the  case  of  many  the 
pressure  of  poverty  is  so  heavy  as  to  make  the  higher 
life  all  but  impossible,  and  that  there  is  need  for 
ameliorative  measures  that  will  bring  goodness  within 
easier  reach.  But  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
the  chief  end  to  be  striven  after  is  moral  manhood — 
character.  The  ethical  must  take  precedence  of  the 
economical  in  our  thoughts  and  aspirations.  First 
righteousness,  second  food  and  raiment.  If  this 
order  be  not  observed,  national  character  will 
deteriorate,  and  with  deteriorated  character  pro- 
sperity will  wane.  The  wise  of  all  ages,  we  have 
seen,  have  believed  in  a  moral  order  as  real  and 
certain  as  the  planetary  system.  If  they  are  not 
all  mistaken,  there  is  such  an  order  as  a  matter  of 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT  415 

fact,  whatever  theological  phrase  we  employ  to 
describe  it.  Call  it  a  moral  government  of  God, 
or  a  tendency  in  the  universe :  it  is  all  one ;  there 
it  is.  And  we  have  to  reckon  with  it.  It  cannot  be 
disregarded  with  impunity  any  more  than  the  ship 
of  Carlyle's  parable  could  get  round  Cape  Horn, 
with  whatever  unanimity  of  the  crew,  if  they  dis- 
regarded the  conditions  '  fixed  with  adamantine 
rigour  by  the  ancient  elemental  powers,  who  are 
entirely  careless  how  you  vote.' x  I  trust  that  in  the 
time  to  come  an  increasing  number  of  men  will  be 
thorough  believers  in  the  moral  order.  Let  all  in 
their  various  spheres  do  their  utmost  to  propagate 
this  faith.  The  pulpit  of  the  future  will  have  to 
devote  more  attention  to  it,  and  strive  to  impress 
on  men's  minds  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  the 
Rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him.  To  do 
this  with  effect  is  not,  I  am  aware,  every  preacher's 
gift.  Special  spiritual  discipline  is  needed  for  the 
task.  But  it  will  be  well  for  the  community  when, 
in  every  considerable  centre  of  population,  one  man 
at  least  has  the  prophetic  vocation  and  impulse  to 
propagate  the  passion  for  righteousness,  and  the 
faith  that  this  sacred  passion  burns  in  the  heart  of 
the  Great  Being  who  guides  the  destinies  of  the 
universe.  The  promoters  of  the  Ethical  Movement 
contemplate  the  ultimate  disappearance  of  the 
Church,  and  the  advent  of  a  time  when  it  will 

1  Latter-Day  Pamphlets^  p.  40. 


416  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

become  a  practical  question,  What  use  can  be  made 
of  ecclesiastical  edifices  no  longer  needed  for  their 
original  purpose?  If  that  ever  happen,  it  will  be 
the  Church's  own  fault.  If  she  forget  the  adage, 
*  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them/  if  she  lose  sight 
of  the  truth  that  morality  is  the  ultimate  test  of  the 
worth  of  religion,  if  she  get  out  of  sympathetic  touch 
with  the  ethical  spirit  of  Jesus,  then  she  will  be 
perilously  near  the  awful  doom  of  savourless  salt. 
But  there  will  be  no  risk  of  such  a  doom  overtaking 
her  so  long  as  the  ethical  ideal  of  the  Gospels  has  a 
sovereign  place  in  her  heart,  and  it  is  manifest  to  all 
the  world  that  she  cares  more  for  righteousness  than 
for  anything  else,  and  that  her  deepest  desire  is,  that 
God's  will  may  be  done  upon  this  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven. 


INDEX 

A 

^Eschylus — 

attitude  towards  mythology,  68. 

belief  in  retributive  justice  of  providence,  71* 

an  innovator  in  moral  thought,  75. 

Nemesis  in  individual  experience,  76. 

is  disciplinary  as  well  as  punitive,  78. 

theories  as  to  his  doctrine  of  Prometheus,  78. 

Prometheus  a  culture  hero,  80. 

defects  of  the  Prometheus  legend,  8l. 

Eumenides,  doctrine  of  Nemesis  in,  82-84. 
Agnosticism — 

of  Huxley,  314-15. 

of  Ritschlian  theology,  350. 

of  Cardinal  Newman,  350. 
Ahriman — 

place  in  Gathas,  39. 

an  ethical  being,  41. 

a  mere  negation  of  the  good  Spirit,  42. 

conception  of,  natural  though  crude,  46. 

used  as  a  foil  to  Ahura,  56. 
Ahura-mazda.     See  Ormuzd. 
Amschaspands,  doctrine  of,  44. 
Angra-mainyu.     See  Ahriman. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  '  sweet  reasonableness '  of  Christ's  doctrine,  353. 
Aurelius,  Marcus — 

legitimacy  of  suicide,  135-6. 

on  future  life,  137. 

religious  tone  of  his  writings,  137-8. 

B 

Balfour,  Arthur  James — 

authority  in  belief,  362. 

narrow  conception  of  reason,  367. 
Bascom,  John — 

reason  and  authority,  363-4. 

futility  of  '  ultra-rational '  sanction,  376. 
2D 


4i8  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Baxter,  Richard,  no  hard-and-fast  line  between  good  men  and  bad,  290. 
Blackie,  John  Stuart- 
purpose  of  Greek  tragic  drama,  72. 

translation  of  ^Eschylus  quoted,  76,  78,  80, 
Bosanquet,  Bernard — 

Stoical  idea  of  worth  of  man,  139. 

does  not  repudiate  Christianity,  396. 

is  not  agnostic,  397-8. 

necessity  for  ethical  faith,  400-1, 

on  Socialism,  411. 
Browning,  Robert — 

general  character  of  his  optimism,  282-3. 

his  creed  Christian,  284-5. 

his  doctrine  of  God,  285-7. 

and  of  man,  287-9. 

good  even  in  evil,  289. 

no  hard-and-fast  line  between  good  men  and  bad,  290. 

value  even  in  failures  of  the  good,  291. 

mode  of  dealing  with  problem  of  evil,  292. 

his  theory  of  moral  evil : — 

(1)  morality  the  highest  good,  294. 

(2)  progress  by  conflict  necessary  to  morality,  295-6. 

(3)  evil  the  foe  to  be  fought,  297. 

(4)  evil  needed  to  make  a  struggle  possible,  297-8. 

(5)  ignorance  of  true  nature  of  evil  necessary  to  give  reality 

to  struggle,  299-301. 

(6)  struggle  will  always  have  a  happy  issue,  301-2. 
problem  finds  its  solution  in  world  beyond  the  grave,  302-3. 
his  optimism  compared  with  Emerson's,  304. 

Budde,  Karl,  on  Book  of  Job,  212,  231,  235  (note),  238  (note). 
Buddha- 
originator  of  Buddhism,  4. 

contrast    between    Buddhism,   Vedic  Indian  and   Brahman   re- 
ligions, 5. 

essence  of  his  doctrine,  6-7. 

emphatic  assertion  of  moral  order,  8. 

theory  of  transmigration,  9-10. 

Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  II,  12. 

doctrine  of  Karma,  13-17. 

desire,  the  will  to  live,  17. 

doctrine  of  Nirvana,  18. 

theory  of  future  rewards  and  punishments,  21. 


INDEX  419 


Buddha — 

function  of  a  Buddha,  22. 

plurality  of  Buddhas  a  necessity,  23. 
reason  for  this  theory,  26. 

six  great  virtues  necessary  to  a  Bodishat,  25. 

knows  no  overruling  Providence,  25. 

criticism  of  his  doctrine,  27. 

relation  to  caste,  28. 

strength  and  weakness  of  his  teaching,  29-32,  384-5. 

links  with  Zoroastrianism,  35-6. 
Bunsen,  Baron — 

on  ameliorating  influence  of  Buddhism,  33. 

on  scepticism  of  Euripides,  91-2. 
Burnouf,  Eugene — 

Buddhist  doctrine  of  transmigration,  12-13. 

the  making  of  a  Buddha,  22. 

Buddhism  of  the  North,  24. 

Buddhism  and  Siva-worship,  33. 
Butler,  Bishop,  continuance  of  life  after  death,  310. 


Campbell,  Dr.  Lewis,  estimate  of  Euripides,  92  (note). 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  diabolic  element  in  life,  345  (note). 
Caste,  relation  of  Buddhism  to,  28. 
Cheyne,  Professor  T.  K.,  on  Book  of  Job,  231  (note). 
Christ- 
comparison  between  His  teaching  and  that  of  Hebrew  Prophets, 

243-5- 
His  teaching  in  so  far  as  peculiar  in  re  external  good  and  evil 

paradoxical,  245. 
His  teaching  may  be  summed  up  in  three  propositions  : — 

(1)  external  good  and  evil  common  to  all  men,  246-8. 

(2)  suffering  inevitable  for  the  righteous,  248-9. 

(3)  those  who  suffer  not  to  be  pitied,  249-51. 
these  propositions  involve  new  idea  of  God,  251. 

His  teaching  as  to  God,  251-4. 
geniality  of  His  doctrine,  254, 
His  optimism,  255-61. 

takes  account  of  adverse  facts,  256-9. 
His  teaching  contrasted  with  Paganism,  262. 
His  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  temporal,  263-4. 


420  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Christ- 
significance  of  His  healing  ministry,  265-6. 

the  worth  of  man,  267-70. 

comprehensiveness  of  conception  of  providential  order,  270. 

conception  of  Satan,  271-2. 

the  stern  side  of  His  teaching,  273-5. 

methods  of  Providential  working — election,  solidarity,  sacrifice- 
recognised,  275-7. 

His  doctrines  acceptable,  277-8. 

His  teaching  combines  merits  and  avoids  defects  of  all  systems, 
390-3- 

future  progress  must  lie  along  line  of  His  teaching,  393. 
Cicero — 

criticism  of  Stoicism,  119. 

on  Stoic  doctrine  of  Providence,  128,  129,  132. 

on  divination,  140,  142,  151,  157-8,  160,  161  (note),  163,  164,  168. 
Conversion,  Zoroastrian  belief  in,  50,  51. 


Darmesteter,  James — 

on  origin  of  Zoroastrianism,  36. 

dualism  latent  in  primitive  Aryan  religion,  39. 

Vedic  dualism,  40. 

character  of  Ahriman,  42. 

doctrine  of  Amschaspands,  44. 
Davids,  Thomas  William  Rhys — 

Buddhist  Birth  Stories  quoted,  12. 

on  doctrine  of  Karma,  14. 

Buddha's  theory  of  desire,  1 8. 

on  Nirvana,  19 
Desire — 

the  will  to  live,  17. 

its  place  in  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism,  17. 
Divination — 

attitude  of  Stoicism  to,  140-1. 

belief  in,  common  to  all  ancient  ethnic  religion,  142. 

a  primitive  form  of  revelation,  143-4. 

compared  with  prophecy,  145-6. 

media    of    revelation — the  fortuitous^    the    unusual,    and    the 
marvellous,  148. 

augury,  149. 


INDEX  421 

Divination — 

haruspicy,  150-1. 

astrology,  152-4. 

the  Greek  Oracles,  154-5. 

decline  of  Oracles,  156-7. 

a  reality  or  a  delusion  ?  i57-6o. 

objections  to,  162-3. 

its  moral  tendency,  164-6. 

Epictetus  on,  166-8. 

modern  attitude  to,  168-9. 

effects  of  its  abolition  on  doctrines  of  Providence  and  prayer, 
170-1. 

a  barrier  to  moral  and  religious  progress,  172-3. 

relation  to  Hebrew  prophecy,  174. 
Dualism — 

Zoroastrian,  39,  49. 

is  characteristic  of  all  primitive  religions,  39. 

fact-basis  of  Persian,  46. 

defects  of        do.,      57. 

influence  of     do.       on  Hebrew  and  Manichsean  religions,  61-2. 
Dualism,  Modern — 

two  types,  3. 

distinct  from  pessimism,  312. 

agnostic  type,  314-15- 

John  Stuart  Mill's,  316-19. 

of  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution,  320-28. 
his  theory  of  Satan,  323-28. 
criticism  of  his  theory,  328-37. 

cure  for  dualistic  mood,  337-39. 

human  reason  as  antagonist  of  the  Deity,  346. 

tendency  to  vilify  reason,  347. 

assertion  that  reason  cannot  find  God,  348-9. 

in  Ritschlian  theology,  350. 

denies  revelation  of  God  in  nature,  351-2. 

capacity  of  reason  to  appreciate  revelation,  352-3. 

causes  of  antithesis  between  reason  and  faith : — 

(1)  artificial  view  of  substance  of  revelation,  354~7» 

(2)  disparagement  of  reason,  357. 
reason,  morality,  and  religion  inseparable,  358. 
authority  of  the  Church,  361-3. 

criticism  .of  theory  that  influence  of  reason  as  compared  with 
authority  insignificant,  363. 


422  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Dualism,  Modern — 

antagonism  between  reason  and  authority  non-scientific,  364. 

evils  of  trusting  too  much  to  authority,  365-6. 

Kidd's  theory  that  reason  anti-social,  368-9. 

criticism  of  this  theory,  371-9. 
Duhm,  B.,  on  Hebrew  prophets,  191,  192  (note). 

E 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo — 

his  optimism,  281-2,  288,  338. 

compared  with  Browning's,  303-4. 
Epictetus — 

on  things  indifferent,  in. 

benefits  derivable  from  external  evil,  117-18,  122-3. 

doctrine  of  God,  134-5. 

legitimacy  of  suicide,  136. 

on  divination,  166-7-8. 
Epicureans,  conception  of  chief  good,  107. 
Ethical  movement,  the — 

its  origin  and  aim,  395-99. 

its  value,  398. 

cannot  long  remain  merely  ethical,  399-403. 
Euripides — 

attitude  towards  mythology,  68. 

doctrine  of  Nemesis,  71. 

his  alleged  scepticism,  92. 

proofs  of  his  religious  convictions,  93-4. 

theory  of  self-sacrifice,  95-100. 

compared  with  that  of  ^Eschylus,  96. 
importance  of  this  theory,  100. 

his  dualism,  102. 

on  divination,  146,  150. 
Evil  and  Evolution — 

the  author's  dualism,  320-8. 

his  theory  of  Satan,  323-8. 

criticism  of  the  theory,  328-37. 
Evolution  in  future  life,  309-11. 


Forsyth,  Peter  Taylor,  on  revelation  in  nature,  348-9-50. 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  on  the  Book  of  Job,  207,  208. 


INDEX  423 

G 

Gordon,  Dr.  George — 

his  views  on  immortality,  305-7. 
identical  with  Browning's,  307. 

estimate  of  his  views,  307-9. 

on  Huxley's  pessimism,  339. 

on  the  authority  of  the  Church,  361. 
Grant,  Sir  Alexander — 

on  the  origin  of  Stoicism,  104. 

translation  of  Cleanthes  quoted,  138. 
Greek  mythology,  66. 
Greek  Tragedians — 

their  religious  creed,  67. 

combination  of  mythology  and  religion,  67. 

their  themes,  73. 

their  strength  and  weakness,  386-7. 
Guyau,  M. — 

necessity  for  divine  inspiration,  403. 

practical  power  of  Christ's  teaching,  407-8. 

on  socialism,  412. 

H 

Hagio-theism,  45. 
Haigh,  Arthur  Elam — 

attitude  of  Greek  Tragedians  towards  myth,  70. 

on  ^Eschylus  quoted,  75-76. 

Hardy,  R.  Spence,  on  Buddhist  doctrine  of  Karma,  15. 
Harnack,  Adolf,  on  Persian  dualism,  57  (note). 
Haug,  Martin,  on  origin  of  Zoroastrianism,  36. 
Hebrew  Prophets — 

their  relation  to  divination,  174. 

contrast  between  prophet  and  diviner,  175-6. 

substitutes  for  diviners,  177. 

their  characteristics,  177-9. 

their  belief  in  creed  of  Moses,  178-9. 

their  ideas  as  to  connection  between  lot  and  conduct,  181,  186. 

their  religious  thought,  its  profoundly  ethical  character,  182. 

their  passion  for  righteousness,  185. 

views  of  earlier  and  later  prophets  compared,  187-93. 

Isaiah,  oracle  of  the  Suffering  Servant  of  God,  191-5. 

Jeremiah,  oracle  of  the  New  Covenant,  197-8. 


424  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Hebrew  Prophets — 
their  defects : — 

(1)  exaggerated  idea  of  connection   between  physical  and 

moral  order,  199-202. 

(2)  one-sided  emphasis  on  punitive  action  of  divine  provi- 

dence, 202-3. 

(3)  outward  good  and  ill  overestimated,  203-4. 

the  service  they  rendered  to  higher  interests  of  humanity,  205-6. 

their  strength  and  weakness,  388-90. 
Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  on  Persian  dualism,  57  (note). 
Hippolytus,  on  diviners,  164. 
Huxley — 

analogy  between  Karma  and  heredity,  14. 

Nirvana  and  apatheia  of  Stoics  compared,  109-10. 

an  exponent  of  agnostic  dualism,  314-15. 
Hyde,  W.  De  Witt,  on  Kidd's  views,  372. 


I 

Immortality — 

Browning's  belief  in,  303. 
Dr.  George  Gordon  on,  305-7* 
reasonableness  of  idea  of,  307-8. 


James,  W.,  on  revelation  in  nature,  349-50. 
Job,  Book  of—- 
its raison.  d'ttre,  208. 

its  date,  209-10. 

relation  of  author  to  opening  and  closing  sections,  211-1*. 

analysis  of,  212-28. 

progress  in  Job's  theology,  228-31. 

didactic  significance  of,  233-36. 

rationale  of  the  suffering  of  the  good,  237. 

attitude  of  author  to  the  views  expressed,  238-42. 

traces  of  doctrine  of  vicarious  suffering,  242. 
Jones,  Professor  Henry — 

on  Emerson's  optimism,  281. 

on  Browning's  optimism,  298. 


INDEX  425 

K 

Kalpa,  definition  of,  20. 
Kant,  Immanuel — 

Karma  equivalent  to  his  Deity,  17. 

on  the  Divine  Moral  Governor,  356. 
Karma — 

what  it  is,  13. 

an  isolated  entity,  16. 

endowed  by  the  Buddhist  with  power  of  physical  causation,  16. 

equivalent  to  Kant's  Deity,  17. 

creates  succession  of  worlds,  20. 
Kautzsch,  Emil,  on  Book  of  Job,  238  (note). 
Kidd,  Benjamin — 

reason  anti-social,  368. 

statement  of  his  views,  368-9. 

criticism  of  his  position,  371-9. 

on  Socialism,  413-14. 

Koeppen,  Carl  Friedrich,  on  Buddhism,  7,  10,  17. 
Kunala,  story  of,  12. 

L 
Lang,  Andrew — 

dualism  in  primitive  religion,  39,  40. 

distinction  between  mythical  and  religious  elements  in  belief,  66. 

on  the  Prometheus  myth,  82. 
Leclercq,  A.  Bouche" — 

on  divination  quoted,  142-3,  170. 
Lightfoot,  Bishop— 

6n  origin  of  Stoicism,  104-5. 

contradictions  of  Stoicism,  106. 


M 

Manichaeism,  its  relation  to  Zoroastrianism,  6l. 
Mansel,  Dean,  on  revelation,  354*5- 
Mill,  John  Stuart— 

his  dualism,  316-19. 

a  modified  dualism,  335*6,  337» 
Mills,  L.  H.— 

on  date  of  the  Gathas,  34. 

separation  of  Buddhism  and  Zoroastrianism,  36. 

estimate  of  value  of  Gathas,  55. 


426  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Moberly,  R.  C.— 

reason  and  morality  inseparable,  358-9. 

antithesis  between  reason  and  morality  unknown  to  Scripture, 
367-8. 

on  Kidd's  views,  370. 
Modern  thought,  optimistic  or  dualistic,  3. 
Mommsen,  Christian  Matthias  Theodor,  on  Cato  quoted,  129. 
Moral  Order — 

consensus  gentium  for,  3801. 

root  of  faith  in,  381. 

theological  position  not  indifferent,  382. 

faith  in,  associated  with  conflicting  judgments  about  human  life, 

383. 

Buddhist  belief  in,  its  strength  and  weakness,  384-5. 
Zoroastrian  do.,  do.  do.,  385-6. 

Greek  do.,  do.  do.,  386-7. 

Stoic  do.,  do.  do.,  387-8. 

Hebrew        do.,  do.  do.,  388-90. 

Christ's  doctrine  summarised,  390-93. 

progress  for  future  must  lie  along  line  of  Christ's  teaching,  393. 
three  new  programmes  : — 

(1)  the  ethical  movement,  395-99. 

(2)  non-rational  religion,  403-6. 

(3)  acceptance  of  Christianity  of  Christ,  406-10. 
bearing  of  Christ's  teaching  on  Socialism,  410-11. 
modern  estimates  of  Socialism,  411-13. 

Muir,  John  (D.C.L.),  translation  from  Rig- Veda  quoted,  17. 

N 
Nagelsbach,  Karl  Friedrich— 

/Eschylus  an  original  moral  thinker,  74  (note). 

on  augury,  149. 

on  haruspicy,  152. 
Nemesis — 

in  Greek  Tragedians,  66. 

^Eschylean  doctrine,  71 ;  in  individual  experience,  76,  81,  82-84* 

doctrine  of  Sophocles,  71,  86. 

doctrine  of  Euripides,  71. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  on  revelation  in  nature,  349. 
Nirvana — 

doctrine  of,  18. 

compared  with  Stoic  apathtia,  109-110. 


INDEX  427 


Ogereau,  F.,  materialism  of  Stoics,  113-4. 
Optimism — 

Christ's,  255-61. 

modern,  compared  with  Christ's,  279. 

tone  and  tendency  of  modern,  281-2. 
Ormuzd — 

place  in  Gathas,  38. 

Ethical  Deity,  41. 

character  of,  43. 

originator  of  cosmic  and  moral  order,  46. 

his  power  over  evil,  53. 


Parker,  Theodore,  his  optimism,  281. 
Paul,  his  dualism,  339-40. 
Plato,  his  dualism,  313,  339,  341  (note). 
Plumptre,  Edward  Hayes — 

translation  of  ^Eschylus  quoted,  76,  77. 

translation  of  Sophocles  quoted,  86,  87,  88,  90, 
Plutarch,  on  cessation  of  oracles,  156-7. 
Prometheus,  cp.  ^Eschylus. 


R 

Reason — 

capacity  of,  to  appreciate  revelation,  352-3. 
causes  of  antithesis  between  reason  and  faith : — 

(1)  artificial  view  of  substance  of  revelation,  354-7» 

(2)  disparagement  of  reason,  357. 
reason,  morality,  and  religion  inseparable,  358. 
authority  of  the  Church,  361-3. 

criticism  of  theory  that  influence  of  reason  as  compared  with 

authority  insignificant,  363. 

antagonism  between  reason  and  authority  non-scientific,  364. 
evils  of  trusting  too  much  to  authority,  365-6. 
Kidd's  theory  that  reason  anti-social,  368-9. 
criticism  of  this  theory,  371-9. 


428  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Renan,  Ernest — 

on  Satan,  63. 

the  genius  of  the  Book  of  Job,  233. 
Kendall,  Gerald  Henry,  attitude  of  Stoics  to  outward  good  or  evil, 

1 10. 

S 

Satan- 
Hebrew  doctrine  of,  62,  341-2. 

how  far  Hebrew  doctrine  derived  from  Persia,  62-5. 

in  the  Gospel  narratives,  271-2. 

theory  of  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution,  323-8. 
criticism  of  theory,  328-37. 

Paul's  belief  in,  339-40. 

havoc  produced  by  assigning  whole  moral  evil  to,  344. 
Seneca— 

on  the  chief  good,  107. 

on  things  indifferent,  121. 

on  moral  uses  of  adversity,  123-4. 

the  wise  man,  126. 

evil  bias  in  human  nature,  133. 

legitimacy  of  grief,  133-4. 

legitimacy  of  suicide,  136. 
Sheldon,  W.  L.— 

duty  the  supreme  fact  of  human  life,  397-8. 

the  bias  on  the  side  of  goodness,  400. 

on  Socialism,  412. 
Socialism — 

bearing  of  Christ's  teaching  on,  410-1 1. 

modern  estimates  of,  411-13. 
Sophocles — 

attitude  towards  mythology,  68. 

doctrine  of  Nemesis,  71,  86. 

changefulness  of  life,  87-8. 

suggestions  of  an  evil  order  in  the  world,  89. 

traces  of  idea  of  vicarious  atonement,  91. 

on  diviners,  146. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  his  agnosticism,  356. 
Stephen,  Leslie — 

his  agnosticism,  356. 

a  morality  independent  of  religion,  397,  406* 

on  facts  and  theories  in  morals,  399. 

on  Socialism,  411-12. 


INDEX  429 

Stobaeus,  Joannes — 

Ecloga  of,  quoted  on  views  of  early  Stoics,  109,  147. 
Stoicism — 

its  moral  distinction,  103. 

its  origin,  104. 

at  once  ethical  and  individualistic,  105. 

on  the  chief  good,  107. 

place  of  pleasure  in,  108. 

doctrine  of  apatheia,  109. 

compared  with  Nirvana,  no. 

its  theology,  111-12. 

its  materialism,  113. 

relation  of  theology  to  ethics,  114-16. 

its  contribution  to  doctrine  of  Providence,  1 1 6- 1 8. 

criticism  of,  1 18-22. 

later  views  on  ethics  of  suffering,  122-4. 

its  ideal  Wise  Man,  126-7. 

its  moral  ideal  criticised,  129-30. 

modifications  of  original  system,  131. 

influence  of  Roman  thought  on,  132-4. 

defects  of  the  Roman  type  of,  135-6. 

on  the  future  life,  136. 

appreciation  of,  137-9. 

its  attitude  towards  divination,  140-1. 

its  strength  and  its  weakness,  387-8. 
Suicide.    See  under  Marcus  Aurelius,  Epictetus,  Seneca. 
Symonds,  John  Addington — 

progression  in  art  in  Greek  poets,  68-70. 

comparison  of  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  70. 

on  Prometheus  Bound  quoted,  79. 

on  Erinnyes  quoted,  83  (note). 

translation  of  Sophocles  quoted,  89,  95. 

on  the  *  pluck '  of  Greek  men  and  women,  ioa 


Tacitus,  on  diviners,  164. 
Thompson,  D'Arcy — 

translation  of  Sophocles  quoted,  86,  88,  89. 

translation  of  Euripides  quoted,  93,  102. 


43P  THE  MORAL  ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

Tiele,  Professor  C.  P.— 

tendency  of  the  reason  of  the  Aryan  race,  360. 

on  the  necessity  of  Theism,  402  (note). 
Transmigration — 

its  place  in  Buddhism,  9. 

explanation  of  its  origin,  9-10, 

its  analogy  to  heredity,  14. 

not  identical  with  heredity,  15. 
Tylor,  Edward  Burnet — 

on  transmigration,  10,  II. 

on  dualism  in  primitive  religion,  39. 


u 

Ur-Buddha,  a  postulated  divine  head  of  all  Buddhas,  24. 


V 

Vedic  Indians — 

their  religion,  4. 

dualism  of,  physical  not  ethical,  40. 
Verrall,  Arthur  Woolgar— 

attitude  of  Greek  Tragedians  towards  mythology,  701 

Euripides'  view  of  legend  of  Alcestis,  99. 


W 

Wallace,  Professor  William,  on  social  nature  of  reason,  372  (note). 
Watson,  Professor  John — 

Euripides'  doctrine  of  self-sacrifice,  101. 

on  Christ's  teaching  on  Providence,  245. 
Way,  Arthur  S.,  translation  of  Euripides  quoted,  94,  99,  102. 
Whitman,  Walt,  his  optimistic  audacity,  282. 
Wodhull,  Michael,  translation  of  Euripides  quoted,  99. 


Zeller,  Eduard,  Stoics'  attitude  to  outward  goods,  109. 
Zoroaster — 

date  of,  34. 

links  with  Buddha,  35. 


INDEX  431 


Zoroaster — 

theories  of  separation  from  Buddhism,  35. 

relation  to  Vedic  worship,  36. 

Ormuzd,  controller  of  natural  and  moral  order,  38. 

dualism  of,  39. 

his  dualism  ethical,  40. 

importance  of  his  ethical  conceptions,  41. 

his  belief  in  conversion,  50-1. 

merits  of  his  religion,  54. 

purity  of  his  theology,  55. 

criticism  of  his  dualism,  56-9. 

historic  influence  of  his  religion,  60. 

strength  and  weakness  of  his  religion,  385-6. 


By  Alexander  Balmain  Bruce,  D.D. 

Late  Professor  of  Apologetics  and  New  Testament  Exegesis  in 
the  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow 

"  One  who  possesses  all  the  works  of  Dr.  Bruce,  possesses  in  them  a  more  fruitful 
theological  library  than  the  collective  writings  of  any  other  theologian  of  our  times  com- 
pose. .  .  .  He  was  easily  the  leading  New  Testament  scholar  of  the  Scotch  school, 
and  his  death  will  be  widely  lamented  in  two  continents."— The  Outlook. 

11  Dr.  Bruce  has  won  for  himself  the  foremost  place  among  living  apologists." 

— The  Expositor. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS 

The  First  Apology  for  Christianity.      An  Exegetical  Study 
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Bruce  has  presented  the  Epistle  with  an  enthusiasm,  simplicity,  and  clearness  which  will 
surely  awaken  interest  and  study."—  The  Biblical  World. 

"  Professor  Bruce  keeps  up  in  this  book  to  his  own  high  standard  of  work." 

— The  Spectator. 

THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ORDER   OF  THE 


ii. 
in. 


IV. 


v. 

VI. 
VII. 


year 


WORLD 

The  Gifford  Lectures  for  1897 — First  Series 
Crown  8vo          ....... 

I.    THE  SUBJECT  INTRODUCED. 

MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  UNI- 
VERSE. 

THEISTIC  INFERENCES  FROM 
MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  UNI- 
VERSE. 

NON-MORAL  DEITY,  OR  THE 
GODS  OF  MODERN  PESSI- 
MISTS. 

THE  WORTH  OF  LIFE. 

THE  WORTH  OF  MAN. 

THE  POWER  MAKING  FOR 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

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•ious  volumes  of  the  author." 
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VIII. 


IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 


$2.00 

THE    POWER    WORKING   IN 
AND  FOR  HUMANITY  : 
PART  I.  HISTORIC  DAWN. 
PART  1 1.  HISTORIC  DAYS. 

PROVIDENCE  IN    THE    INDI- 
VIDUAL LIFE. 

PROVIDENTIAL  METHODS  : 
ELECTION. 

PROVIDENTIAL  METHODS  : 
SOLIDARITY. 

PROVIDENTIAL  METHODS  : 
PROGRESS  BY  SACRIFICE. 


— entirely  worthy  to  stand  beside  the  previous  volumes  of  the"  author.' 
-The  No 


THE  MORAL  ORDER   OF  THE  WORLD 

In  Ancient  and  Modern  Thought 

The  Gifford  Lectures  for  1898 — Second  Series 
Crown  8vo $2.00 

An  answer,  in  the  author's  engaging  style,  to  the  historical  inquiry  : 
"What  have  the  wisest  thought  on  the  great  theme  of  the  Moral  Order 
of  the  Universe  in  its  reality  and  essential  nature  ?" 


By  the  late  Professor  Bruce 


THE   TRAINING   OF   THE    TWELVE 


Exhibiting  the  Twelve  Disciples  under  Discipline  for  the  Apostleship 

8vo 

. 

£3.50 

I. 

BEGINNINGS. 

XVIII. 

THE       ANOINTING       IN 

II. 

FISHERS  OF  MEN. 

BETHANY. 

III. 

MATTHEW  THE  PUBLICAN. 

XIX. 

FIRST-FRUITS     OF     THE 

IV. 

THE  TWELVE. 

GENTILES. 

V. 

HEARING  AND  SEEING. 

XX. 

O     JERUSALEM  !      JERU- 

VI. 

LESSONS  ON  PRAYER. 

SALEM  ! 

VII. 

LESSONS  IN  RELIGIOUS   LIB- 

XXI. 

THE  MASTER  SERVING. 

ERTY. 

XXII. 

IN  MEMORIAM. 

VIII. 

FIRST  ATTEMPTS  AT  EVAN- 

XXIII. 

JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 

GELISM. 

XXIV. 

THE  DYING  PARENT  AND 

IX. 

THE  GALILEAN  CRISIS. 

THE  LITTLE  ONE. 

X. 

THE  LEAVEN  OF  THE  PHAR- 

XXV. 

DYING  CHARGE  TO  THE 

ISEES  AND  SADDUCEES. 

FUTURE  APOSTLES. 

XI. 

PETER'S    CONFESSION  ;    OR, 

XXVI. 

THE  INTERCESSORY 

CURRENT    OPINION     AND 

PRAYER. 

ETERNAL  TRUTH. 

XXVII. 

THE  SHEEP  SCATTERED. 

XII. 

FIRST  LESSON  ON  THE  CROSS. 

XXVIII. 

THE      SHEPHERD      RE- 

XIII. 

THE  TRANSFIGURATION. 

STORED. 

XIV. 

TRAINING  IN  TEMPER  ;    OR, 

XXIX. 

THE   UNDER-SHEPHERDS 

DISCOURSE  ON  HUMILITY. 

ASTONISHED. 

XV. 

THE  SONS  OF  THUNDER. 

XXX. 

POWER  FROM  ON  HIGH. 

XVI. 

IN  PER^A. 

XXXI. 

WAITING. 

XVII. 

THE  SONS  OF  ZEBEDEE. 

"  That  minister  who  has  not  read  '  The  Training  of  the  Twelve '  betrays  an  indifference 
to  modern  thought  which  is  unpardonable."— President  HARPER  in  The  Biblical  World. 

THE   HUMILIATION   OF  CHRIST 

In  its  Physical,  Ethical,  and  Official  Aspects 
The   Sixth   Series   of  the    Cunningham    Lectures 

$3-5° 
SUBJECT     OF 


8vo 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 
V. 


CHRISTOLOGICAL  AXIOMS. 

THE  PATRISTIC  CHRISTOLOGY. 

THE  LUTHERAN  AND  RE- 
FORMED CHRISTOLOGIES. 

THE  MODERN  KENOTIC  THE- 
ORIES. 

MODERN  HUMANISTIC  THE- 
ORIES OF  CHRIST'S  PERSON. 


VI. 


MORAL 


CHRIST     THE 
TEMPTATION    AND 
DEVELOPMENT. 

THE  HUMILIATION  OF  CHRIST 
IN  ITS  OFFICIAL  ASPECT. 

APPENDIX. 


VII. 


"  These  lectures  are  able  and  deep-reaching  to  a  degree  not  often  found  in  the  relig- 
ious literature  of  the  day  ;  withal  they  are  fresh  and  suggestive.  .  .  .  The  learning 
and  the  deep  and  sweet  spirituality  of  this  discussion  will  commend  it  to  many  faithful 
students  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus." — Congregationalist. 

CHARLES   SCRIRNER'S   SONS,   Publishers 

153—157  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


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